This story was originally published in 2019 following an incendiary rally in El Paso, Texas, held by Donald Trump, at which inaccurate remarks were made about the definition of abortion. Given Texas's extreme new law banning abortions after six weeks that went into effect this week, we are republishing the story as its message feels particularly resonate.
The fight over abortion rights has always been intense. The issue is deeply personal and like lighter fluid to ideas that already spark controversy: women’s reproductive rights, contraception, science versus religion. But in this political moment, words are like matches—and women and doctors are the ones most likely to get burned.
Careful semantics about abortion are as old as the debate about women’s reproductive rights. Back when Roe v. Wade was decided, anti-abortion groups mobilized convincingly around pro-life. Since then the semantics have gotten more graphic, with words like murder and infanticide becoming the norm, while politicized and medically inaccurate terms like “late-term abortion” continue to infiltrate the debate. But lately the rhetoric around abortion has gotten particularly inflammatory. President Trump, at a rally in El Paso, Texas, earlier this month, falsely implied that babies could be “ripped from their mother’s womb, right up until the moment of birth.”
These words matter, experts say. “Absolutely sensational rhetoric like the kind that we see being thrown around on social media, and also by the president, definitely contributes toward an inaccurate portrayal of what abortion is, who the people are who provide abortions, and who the people are that get abortions,” says Jennifer Conti, M.D., a board-certified ob-gyn in California, fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health, and host of podcast The V Word.
Spreading misinformation is, unquestionably, a major issue. But the more pressing problem, according to those on the front lines of the debate: Rhetoric like this lays the groundwork for violence against patients and abortion providers.
“I’ve seen over and over and over again: As the rhetoric escalates, so does the violence,” says interim president and CEO of the National Abortion Federation, the Very Reverend Katherine Ragsdale, an Episcopal priest. She’s been on the front lines of the fight for abortion rights for 35 years, long enough to see several rounds of “horrific rhetoric and activity”—and long enough to see friends killed in violence related to the movement.
It’s happening again now. “We’ve seen a huge spike in violence and disruption at our clinics since the 2016 election,” Ragsdale says, citing a 2017 report by the National Abortion Federation. “I don’t think that’s a coincidence.” Case in point: Death threats and threats of harm reported by abortion clinics across the country nearly doubled between 2016 and 2017, and incidences of trespassing nearly tripled, according to the report. The first attempted bombing of an abortion clinic in years was reported in Illinois in 2017 and in February, an attempted case of arson was reported at a planned Parenthood Clinic in Missouri.
The numbers of protesters (which can take a serious toll on providers and patients) are swelling too. “It’s intimidation,” says Diane Horvath, M.D., medical director of Whole Women's Health Clinic in Baltimore. Her clinic often sees anti-choice advocates lurking outside. “It's very menacing to have people peek into your windows and to have staff worry about who they are going to see when we go outside,” she says. “That's the whole point: to create this climate of fear.”
It’s not just providers who face threats from inflammatory rhetoric—those seeking medical care also get burned.
Calla Hales, a clinic director who oversees two abortion clinics in Georgia and two in North Carolina, sees so many protesters every day of the year that it’s become a new norm. But this year something is different. “We definitely noticed a change in rhetoric and in hostility,” she says. Historically, religious groups attempting to intercept patients as they enter the clinic have tried to shame women with language like, “Please, Mom, don’t kill your baby,” Hales says. But recently things have gotten even more vicious. “We noticed very vulgar, descriptive, inflammatory language: ‘How could you stand to let someone snap their neck? How could you stand to let someone rip your baby apart?’ It’s very upsetting to patients, clearly,” she says.
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There’s no indication that anti-choice rhetoric actually keeps women from getting care—abortions happen just as frequently in countries with the most-restrictive abortion laws as they do in countries with the least-restrictive laws, according to data from the Guttmacher Institute—but the shaming does take a toll.
“There's a baseline level of stigma that people come in with because of the horrible things said about abortion in general,” says Dr. Horvath, but lately patients have commented on the “hostile” climate, especially toward families needing abortion care later in a pregnancy. “It’s a terribly tragic, awful thing to do to women who are already struggling with generally difficult circumstances,” says Ragsdale. “To add some sort of shame and demonization on top of all that is just unconscionable.”
For some, the real issue with incendiary rhetoric is that it tries to make access to abortion a black-and-white issue, to frame those who seek it and those who provide it as evil and thoughtless. To make those who oppose it—by any means possible—moral crusaders. “It is nerve-racking. Historically, when this type of inflammatory rhetoric has been used, it has ended in violence,” Hales says. “These words have meaning; they incite reactions. That’s the point.”
The reality is that the reasons behind abortion decisions are often heart-wrenchingly complex. And parents seeking late-term abortions are increasingly upset with this attempt at portraying them as evil. “I think people are really angry because they're making decisions that loving parents make,” says Dr. Horvath. “Maybe they are already raising a special-needs kid, or are financially in a position where they can't support another child with special needs. I think they're angry because they know why they're here. They know that they're doing this because they're good parents.” There’s nothing black-and-white about it. “You need the expertise of the provider and the personal decision of the family to make this choice,” says Dr. Conti. “It does not involve politicians.”
Macaela MacKenzie is the senior health editor at Glamour. Follow her on Instagram @macaelamac and on Twitter @MacaelaMack.
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