Abstract
Introduction
In July 2015, the antiabortion Center for Medical Progress released a covertly filmed
video of a Planned Parenthood official discussing the dispensation of postabortion
remains for research, a practice the general public was not familiar with. Research
shows that people use preexisting frameworks (such as support for or opposition to
abortion rights) to make sense of new information. We examine the presence and use
of abortion-related movement heuristics, language, and framing in the lay public's
engagement with this video and their response to it.
Methods
Using modified grounded theory, we analyzed user comments on five online news articles
about the video, drawn from sources representing different segments of the spectrum
of support for abortion rights, to serve as a proxy for the public conversation.
Results
Commenters used language and framing consistent with the abortion rights and antiabortion
social movements to debate basic information about this practice (i.e., the language
of “fetal tissue” vs “baby parts” and whether the abortion provider profited from
the exchange). Discussion of the abortion provider's casual demeanor, however, did
not always use movement language and association consistently, with some commenters
demonstrating inconsistency between their support for abortion and response to the
video.
Conclusions
Online commenters largely used language consistent with the contemporary abortion
movements’ ideological frames in their engagement about the video. The presence of
this language suggests that people may draw on existing frameworks about abortion
when they engage with abortion-related information, which could have implications
for efforts to address abortion misinformation.
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Biography
Katrina Kimport, PhD, is associate professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences and research sociologist in the Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health program of the University of California, San Francisco. Her research focuses on gender, reproduction, and social movements.
Biography
Colin Doty, PhD, teaches Communication at California Lutheran University. His work focuses on misinformation and how people formulate beliefs about health-related issues, including vaccines and abortion.
Article info
Publication history
Published online: February 27, 2019
Accepted:
January 18,
2019
Received in revised form:
December 19,
2018
Received:
March 27,
2018
Footnotes
Funding support for the data collection and analysis came from a grant from the National Health Law Program. The funder had no involvement in the study design, data collection, analysis, or decision to publish.
Identification
Copyright
© 2019 Jacobs Institute of Women's Health. Published by Elsevier Inc.