GOP “Chipping Away” At Abortion Rights? Another Phrase Concealing Truth
Michael Matthew Bloomer, June 13, 2013
“But unlike in recent years when the thrust of legislative activity was on regulating abortion
(e.g., requirements that women undergo an ultrasound, clinic regulations or insurance coverage restrictions),
legislators in several states this year [2013] seem instead to be focusing on banning abortion outright,
either by declaring that personhood begins at the moment of conception or
by prohibiting abortion even during the first trimester of pregnancy.”
Laws Affecting Reproductive Health and Rights:
Trends in the First Quarter of 2013
Guttmacher Institute
(Also see, Laws Affecting Reproductive Health and Rights:
2012 State Policy Review
Media reports often alert us of a Republican effort to “chip away” at abortion rights. That “chip away” metaphor cannot survive the facts, particularly at the state level wherever the GOP controls the legislature and governorship. As the Guttmacher Institute reports cited above reveal, in those virulently anti-abortion state legislatures, abortion rights have been systematically “chipped away” in the same sense that the image below represents “chipping away”:
We need to remind ourselves of this when we encounter issues framed with terms incompatible with the reality since, in many cases, framing short circuits thought. And that knowledge of human nature has driven GOP political and public communication strategy for decades . . .
Check out the Guttmacher Institute reports cited above . . .
