“When we say, ‘Protect babies with a beating heart,’ we’ve found a way to overcome that tsunami of messaging from Planned Parenthood,” Mr. Gonidakis said of the prominent abortion rights group. “The power of words and repeating those words over and over again helps steer the debate and move the needle in your favor.”As abortion opponents push the term “fetal heartbeat,” abortion rights activists are trying to galvanize support by focusing on the impact the recently passed bans can have on people’s lives. On a culture-war battleground where many Americans have already chosen a side, experts say, effective messaging can be the catalyst that mobilizes people on either one — in addition to reaching the undecided. Even the term “abortion,” they say, was stigmatized in the late 1990s with the “safe, legal and rare” tagline, used by President Bill Clinton to describe the Democrats’ policy outlook on abortion. Describing abortion as needing to be rare implied incorrectly, in the eyes of advocates, that there was something inherently wrong with having an abortion.

Source: New York Times May 22, 2019 22:54 UTC