The Washington Post - USA (2022-04-03)

SUNDAY, APRIL 3 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A

have resisted this kind of rhetoric

from the beginning. Within the

reproductive justice movement,

advocates challenged Democratic

leaders starting in the 1990 s,

Ziegler said, pushing them to

abandon phrases like Clinton’s

and any language that suggested

people seeking abortions were

irresponsible or otherwise at

fault. They also challenged the

fact that politicians did not focus

on the barriers to abortion among

low-income people and people of

color, she said.

As those groups have become

more prominent within the abor-

tion rights movement, they have

influenced mainstream Demo-

cratic beliefs, persuading many

more lawmakers to address abor-

tion with more direct language,

said Zakiya Luna, a sociology pro-

fessor at Washington University

in St. Louis who focuses on the

reproductive justice movement.

Groups like SisterSong, a re-

productive justice organization

formed in 1997, said words like

“choice” might alienate those

who don’t have equal access to

abortion care.

“For decades, BIPOC people

have been telling mainstream

folks in the reproductive rights

space, ‘What you’re doing isn’t

protecting all of us,’ ” Luna said,

using an acronym for Black, In-

digenous and people of color.

Reproductive justice leaders have

urged mainstream abortion

rights organizations to “be bold”

when talking about this issue, she

added.

Planned Parenthood’s McGill

Johnson said the group would

now use a term like “pro-abor-

tion,” a drastic change from the

group’s rhetoric even a few years

ago.

“Planned Parenthood would

stay away from any language that

would stigmatize abortion as a

procedure,” she said. “And we

recognize that not every choice is

equal, and not every choice is

easy.”

Bracey Sherman, with We Tes-

tify, said that since she started her

online tracker of Biden’s com-

ments, people have sometimes

asked why it matters that he has

not said the word as president,

especially when his administra-

tion is taking action on the issue.

“It’s just a word,” she said they’ll

tell her.

Bracey Sherman said she al-

ways responds the same way:

“If it’s just a word, then why

won’t he say it?”

Like Biden, Rep. Conor Lamb, a
Pennsylvania Democrat running
for the Senate, often uses “a wom-
an’s right to choose,” “health care”
or “services” instead of “abortion.”
In a recent interview, Lamb said he
was not trying to avoid the word.
When he talks about the issue
publicly, he said, he likes to empha-
size the importance of “choice.”
“I don’t have any problem say-
ing the word ‘abortion,’ ” said
Lamb, who says he is personally
opposed to abortion as a Catholic
but fully supports the rights es-
tablished in Roe in his capacity as
a lawmaker.
“I try not to make the discus-

FROM PREVIOUS PAGE sion about a particular procedure
so much as about the more funda-
mental question of who gets to
decide,” he said.
The abortion rights groups
pressuring politicians to focus on
the word have joined in an unlike-
ly alliance with antiabortion
groups, who have long demanded
that those favoring abortion
rights say “abortion.” Those anti-
abortion groups view the empha-
sis on “choice” as an attempt to
divert attention away from the
procedure itself. If Democrats
make the conversation about “a
woman’s right to choose” or a
“constitutional right,” more mod-
erates will support their position
on abortion, said Mallory Carroll,

vice president of communica-

tions at the Susan B. Anthony

List, a national antiabortion or-

ganization.

“That sounds so much better,”

Carroll said. “Everyone can get

behind the constitution. Every-

one likes the idea of rights.”

Democrats have long framed

the abortion conversation more

broadly. Of the 20 State of the

Union speeches delivered by

Democrats since Roe v. Wade,

only one — then-President Barack

Obama’s 2015 address — included

the word. Republicans, on the

other hand, have said “abortion”

— in expressing their opposition

— in seven State of the Union

speeches since 1973.

When they addressed abortion

in other statements and speeches

in the 1990s, Democrats generally

tried to appeal to the largest

possible cross-section of voters,

said Mary Ziegler, a professor at

Florida State University’s College

of Law and Harvard Law School

who specializes in the history of

abortion. Democratic leaders at

the time emphasized that being

“pro-choice” was not being “pro-

abortion.” As he campaigned for

president in 1992, Bill Clinton

said abortion should be “safe,

legal and rare,” coining a phrase

that defined the party’s position

on abortion for years.

“That was the argument of

Biden’s formative years in the

Senate,” Ziegler said.

Even after that phrase drew

criticism from some abortion

rights groups that said it stigma-

tized those who needed abor-

tions, Democratic leaders contin-

ued to frame the issue in a similar

way. When Obama broached the

subject in his 2015 State of the

Union, he celebrated the decreas-

ing numbers of abortions in the

United States but didn’t propose

any action.

“We still may not agree on a

woman’s right to choose, but

surely we can agree it’s a good

thing that teen pregnancies and

abortions are nearing all-time

lows,” he said.

Some abortion rights groups

ASTRID RIECKEN FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

The sun rises behind the March for Life stage in D.C. on J an. 21. The antiabortion rally is held around the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

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