What is it about?
This study explores the argumentation and the rhetorical resources in the online abortion law debate in Poland in late 2016. It shows how selected devices were used to divide and discredit the opponents in the social media by two social movements: Stop Abortion (a coalition of conservative and religious organizations that sponsored the legislative proposal to considerably restrict abortion) and the Save Women (a committee that stood behind the ‘black’ protests opposing the project.
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Why is it important?
It is an empirical attempt at mapping which rhetorical resources were deployed to persuade and mobilize a largely disengaged public at a critical moment when the legislators were to decide on reproductive rights. The simmering debate on the issue that continued for over two decades crossed the threshold of media and public visibility.
Perspectives
Anti-abortion discourses in Poland are marked by a rhetoric that abounds in moral self-righteousness, in demonization of (female) sexuality and in crusading agains the opponents. As this rhetoric is tied with religion and patriotic values and is devoid of ambiguity and uncertainty, it seems that the depoliticized public finds it more comfortable and accepts such biopower discourses by default. In this context, reproductive rights are a toxic theme, abandoned by all leading political parties in Poland, apart from a few women’s organizations. Abortion is a stigmatizing issue that tarnishes political reputations not only with connotations of immorality related to permissive and anti-patriotic mindsets, but also historically with links to Poland’s ruinous communist and (neo)liberal political regimes.
Dr hab. Katarzyna Molek-Kozakowska
University of Opole
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Reproductive rights or duties? The rhetoric of division in social media debates on abortion law in Poland, Social Movement Studies, June 2019, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/14742837.2019.1629279.
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