Rhetoric of the Anti-Abortion Movement

The “Pro-life” or Anti-abortion movement has been present prior to the Roe V. Wade Supreme Court case and has been going strong ever since. Before that case changed abortion laws to how they are today, or for now at least, anti-abortion views were the predominant stance on state laws.
The goals of this movement, in the most basic sense, is for the “preservation of life”. Basically, they want to eliminate access to safe abortions in hopes that more children can be brought into the world.


The rhetoric used by this movement is primarily lots of pathos. From my reading and research, I found quotes such as, “Every year, hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings are systematically murdered in the United States, with over 51 million killed in the past 45 years. Though these killings are not perpetrated directly by the state, the government holds that private citizens have a constitutionally protected right to inflict this lethal violence on the members of a specific class of people (who also happen to be among the most innocent and the most vulnerable among us)”. With words like that and with little context and background knowledge, it can be rather difficult to find a positive thing in regards to abortion.


More pathos that is used is immensely prevalent in signs. For example, I see so many signs and even bumper stickers with the phrase, “Save the Unborn”, and just a bunch of other harmful rhetoric in reference to the mothers of these aborted “children” being murderers.

This movement is constantly assuming that they are taking the moral high ground by "protecting" potential children and putting a face to what they're protecting by using pictures of fully developed or even babies that have already been born opposed to bringing focus and using resources towards life that already exists and the mothers that need their help and support more than ever.

The use of this harmful rhetoric within this movement, apart from legislation that is passed from state-to-state, is used to persuade, rather than coerce. The persuasion comes in by making you feel sorry or maybe even guilt for potential children that are aborted.

Although the majority of Americans believe that Roe V. Wade should not be overturned, the "pro-life" movement is probably not a movement that will change in the near future.


 Sources: http://theweek.com/articles/591382/deeply-irresponsible-rhetoric-prolife-movement
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/02/daniel-williams-defenders-unborn/435369/https://newrepublic.com/article/124829/roots-pro-lifers-dangerous-rhetoric

http://www.priestsforlife.org/columns/column7-20unity.html