Planned Parenthood Rolls Out Branding For Abortion
Political movements have long understood that changing the words people use can gradually change the way they think. Definitions are softened, familiar terms are replaced, and language that once seemed clear becomes vague or politically charged. Words considered uncomfortable are pushed out of public discussion, while carefully chosen euphemisms take their place. Planned Parenthood recently […]
Political movements have long understood that changing the words people use can gradually change the way they think. Definitions are softened, familiar terms are replaced, and language that once seemed clear becomes vague or politically charged. Words considered uncomfortable are pushed out of public discussion, while carefully chosen euphemisms take their place.
Planned Parenthood recently offered another example of this strategy.
On Monday, the organization posted a message on its official Facebook page declaring, “Reproductive freedom means every person gets to decide what’s right for their own body. No exceptions.”
The accompanying image went even further, stating, “Abortion is gender-affirming care.”
That is a striking new way to describe abortion.
The phrase “gender-affirming care” has typically been used to refer to medical treatments connected to gender identity. Those treatments can include hormone therapy, mastectomies and surgeries that permanently alter a person’s body. Critics have raised serious concerns about such procedures, particularly when they involve minors or people struggling with mental-health conditions.
Now Planned Parenthood appears to be expanding the phrase to include abortion.
It is not immediately clear how abortion supposedly affirms a person’s gender. Abortion advocates often frame the procedure as a matter of personal freedom, bodily autonomy and women’s rights. But describing it as “gender-affirming care” seems less like an explanation and more like an effort to attach abortion to another politically favored cause.
The reaction in the Facebook comments showed that many readers were confused or openly critical.
One user simply asked, “What does that even mean?”
Another challenged Planned Parenthood’s claim that every person should be allowed to decide what happens to his or her own body. The commenter argued that abortion also affects the body and life of an unborn child, who has no voice in the decision. The user pointed to adoption as an alternative to ending the pregnancy.