Foetus or child? Abortion discourse and attributions of humanness

Abstract

Due to moral, religious, and cultural sensibilities, the topic of abortion still gives rise to controversy. The ongoing public debate has become visibly polarized with the usage of the pro-life versus pro-choice rhetoric. The aim of the current research was to investigate whether the language used in abortion discourse can affect people's attitudes by changing their attributions of humanity to unborn. Across three experimental studies we showed that participants who read about a 'foetus', compared to a 'child' declared higher support for elective abortion (Study 1; N = 108), this effect can be explained by greater humanness, as reflected in human nature traits, attributed to the child (vs. the foetus; Study 2; N = 121). The effect is mediated uniquely by attribution of human nature, but not by human uniqueness traits (Study 3; N = 120). These findings serve as a starting point for discussion of the role of language in shaping attitudes on abortion and other morally ambiguous issues.

Framing a ‘social problem': Emotion in anti‐abortion activists' depiction of the abortion debate

“…Although the precise form to these debates varies according to national context (Morgan, ), a key issue of contestation concerns foetal personhood (and even where abortion is legal it is rarely considered as solely a health care issue: Purcell, Brown, Melville, & McDaid, ). The language used in these debates (e.g., ‘foetus’ vs. ‘unborn child’) is strategically important (Reicher & Hopkins, 1996a) and has been shown to shape audience response (Mikołajczak & Bilewicz, ). Moreover, the labels used to describe what the debate is all about – and thus the nature of debate's protagonists (and activist identities) – are important.…”

Exploring the relationship between lay theories of gender and attitudes to abortion in the context of a national referendum on abortion policy

“…If participants’ voting intentions were predominantly driven by attitudes to traumatic abortion, the relevance of lay gender theories may have been minimised. Additionally, although religious observance has declined dramatically in Ireland since the 1990s, the traditionally strong Catholic influence on Irish culture may mean beliefs about the status and rights of the foetus overshadow beliefs about gender in determining abortion attitudes [47–49]. Lay theories of human categories beyond gender may prove a fruitful avenue for investigation for future research.…”

“…Public opinion research shows abortion attitudes are influenced by a range of variables, including age [30,31], religion and religiosity [32–38,38,39], education [40,41], political affiliation [35,42–46] and personal values [32,35,36,38]. Most of this evidence comes from sociological or political science studies of socio-demographic predictors, with less attention to the social psychological dynamics of public attitudes to abortion [47–49]. Moreover, the vast majority of research on abortion attitudes emanates from the US.…”

Abortion debates in Finland and the Republic of Ireland: textual analysis of experiential thinking and argumentation in parliamentary and layperson discussions

“…Many debaters utilized emotionally loaded language that can evoke negative feelings and shape the audience's attitudes on abortion [ 39 , 46 ]. Appealing to emotions was very abundant in the studied debates (see also [ 24 , 25 ] for examples in the UK and USA) and mostly presented as appeals to pity but appeals to anger and fear were also observed.…”