Lambert Victoria C, Hackworth Emily E, Billings Deborah L
Department of Health Promotion, Education and Behavior, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, United States.
Front Glob Womens Health. 2023 Mar 30;4:1124132. doi: 10.3389/fgwh.2023.1124132. eCollection 2023.
On June 24, 2022, The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, leaving abortion legislation entirely up to states. However, anti-abortion activists and legislators have organized for decades to prevent abortion access through restrictive state-level legislation. In 2019, South Carolina legislators proposed a bill criminalizing abortion after 6 weeks gestation, before most people know they are pregnant. The current study examines the anti-abortion rhetoric used in legislative hearings for this extreme abortion restriction in South Carolina. By examining the arguments used by anti-abortion proponents, we aim to expose their misalignment with public opinion on abortion and demonstrate that their main arguments are not supported by and often are counter to medical and scientific evidence.
We qualitatively analyzed anti-abortion discourse used during legislative hearings of SC House Bill 3020, The South Carolina Fetal Heartbeat Protection from Abortion Act. Data came from publicly available videos of legislative hearings between March and November 2019, during which members of the public and legislators testified for and against the abortion ban. After the videos were transcribed, we thematically analyzed the testimonies using and emergent coding.
Testifiers (Anti-abortion proponents) defended the ban using scientific disinformation and by citing advances in science to redefine "life." A central argument was that a fetal "heartbeat" (i.e., cardiac activity) detected at 6 weeks gestation indicates life. Anti-abortion proponents used this to support their argument that the 6-week ban would "save lives." Other core strategies compared anti-abortion advocacy to civil rights legislation, vilified supporters and providers of abortion, and framed people who get abortions as victims. Personhood language was used across strategies and was particularly prominent in pseudo-scientific arguments.
Abortion restrictions are detrimental to the health and wellbeing of people with the potential to become pregnant and to those who are pregnant. Efforts to defeat abortion bans must be grounded in a critical and deep understanding of anti-abortion strategies and tactics. Our results reveal that anti-abortion discourse is extremely inaccurate and harmful. These findings can be useful in developing effective approaches to countering anti-abortion rhetoric.
2022年6月24日，美国最高法院推翻了罗诉韦德案，使堕胎立法完全由各州自行决定。然而，反堕胎活动人士和立法者已经组织了几十年，通过限制性的州级立法来阻止人们获得堕胎服务。2019年，南卡罗来纳州的立法者提出了一项法案，将怀孕6周后的堕胎行为定为犯罪，而此时大多数人还不知道自己怀孕。本研究考察了南卡罗来纳州这项极端堕胎限制立法听证会上使用的反堕胎言论。通过审视反堕胎支持者所使用的论点，我们旨在揭示他们的观点与公众对堕胎的看法不一致，并表明他们的主要论点没有医学和科学证据的支持，而且往往与之相悖。
我们对南卡罗来纳州众议院法案3020《南卡罗来纳州保护胎儿心跳免受堕胎法案》立法听证会期间使用的反堕胎话语进行了定性分析。数据来自2019年3月至11月立法听证会的公开视频，在此期间，公众成员和立法者就堕胎禁令发表了支持和反对的证词。视频转录后，我们使用主题分析和新出现的编码方法对证词进行了分析。
证人（反堕胎支持者）通过传播科学虚假信息并引用科学进展来重新定义“生命”，为禁令进行辩护。一个核心论点是，在怀孕6周时检测到的胎儿“心跳”（即心脏活动）表明胎儿有生命。反堕胎支持者以此来支持他们的论点，即6周禁令将“拯救生命”。其他核心策略包括将反堕胎倡导与民权立法相提并论、诋毁堕胎的支持者和提供者，以及将堕胎者描绘成受害者。人格语言在各种策略中都有使用，在伪科学论点中尤为突出。
堕胎限制对有可能怀孕的人和孕妇的健康与福祉有害。挫败堕胎禁令的努力必须建立在对反堕胎策略和手段进行批判性深入理解的基础上。我们的研究结果表明，反堕胎话语极其不准确且有害。这些发现有助于制定有效的方法来对抗反堕胎言论。
