Anti-abortion rhetoric and the undermining of choice: Women’s agency as causing “psychological trauma” following the termination of a pregnancy

Historically the anti-abortion movement has opposed abortions through reference to the fetus' human status. However, recently there has been a rhetorical shift whereby abortion is criticized based on its alleged negative psychological impact on women, with some authors voicing concerns related to this medicalized repertoire undermining women's capacity to act as rational decision-makers. However, no research to date has systematically analyzed how women’s agency over their abortions features in anti-abortion rhetoric. In this discourse analysis of interviews with 15 anti-abortion supporters, I explore how psychological concepts are employed to indirectly undermine women's agency to abort. Participants construct the termination of a pregnancy as psychologically damaging when women’s agency is evident (e.g., in abortions or rape pregnancy abortions). Also women's choice appears as enforced by society, victimizing them and removing accountability over it. However, unintentional termination (e.g., miscarriage) is constructed as “natural” and psychologically harmless due to the lack of agency. Overall, the pathologization of abortion through reference to psychological trauma stemming from the exercise of agency allows anti-abortionists to naturalize motherhood and oppose abortions in an “objective”, depoliticized, non-restrictive, and pro-woman manner, without explicitly disregarding women’s ability to choose or breaching Western norms of autonomy and freedom of choice.

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