Editors Note: How did the visual and written ephemera surrounding reproductive freedom come to be? How has the proliferation of this content managed to hide its motives within plain sight? These are the questions artist and writer Divya Mehra wanted to explore when she began The Semiotics of a Movement series in 2022, in the wake of the Dobbs decision. “The rhetoric of abortion has become so familiar that we’ve lost sight of how it was planted, cultivated, and cemented with intent,” Mehra wrote in her introduction. The fifth installment brings the series to our current moment, as she explores how the “linguistic gymnastics” of one man, in particular, is shaping the reproductive rights discussion.
In 2022, we began this series with a discussion of the early underpinnings of fetal imagery, John and Barbara Willke (boosted by the moral majority) and their visual pro-life campaign, and later, the use of imagery by Ms Magazine in displaying the horrors of what outlawing abortion can do to women. These visual symbols set the stage for today’s rhetorical battles, where language—laden with fear and control—serves the same end.
In an Orwellian world, politics is where language goes to die. Political rhetoric faces the danger of being reduced to something ornamental; a shiny and hollow stand-in without substance. George Orwell was critical, but he was not a pure cynic. In his treatise, Politics and the English Language, he also lays out a set of rules for avoiding this trap. These include: no stale metaphors or jargon, short and precise words, and fresh speech—all admirable goals to aspire to, president or not. Orwell’s last rule for politicians, and I don’t use this term lightly, trumps the rest: “Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.”
What Orwell was rallying against was not mere political correctness and overly complex words but rather language that conceals meaning, and its darker consequence: the corruption of thought. In this series, we’ve looked at symbols that act as shorthand for thought; images that short-circuit the reflective mind in favor of primal emotion. Today, we’ll look at how language does the same, and how it will continue to shape abortion rights in America.
Trump uses language in a manner unheard from most politicians. His supporters applaud his apparent lack of pretension. He says what comes to mind. He digresses and repeats. He is long-winded and conversational, but not abstract and certainly not politically correct. His mood shifts as often does a teenage girl’s; he declares his contradictions with confidence and screams absolutisms into the all-consuming cybersphere. His opinions are often simply stated with elementary grammatical structures and vocabulary, i.e. “I love women,” never mind that the opinions themselves are difficult to follow, sometimes changing several times over the course of a few days, and aren’t followed by specific policies. He says his presidency will be “great for women.” In what way has a post-Roe America possibly been great for women? There’s no time to follow up because our drunk uncle has wandered off to grope the women he loves so much or ridicule “Tampon Tim.”
But I won’t deny that he has captivated the world, fans and critics alike, for one reason: he demands attention because of the sheer peculiarity of his speech. It may be idiotic, but it is new. As evidenced by the election results, it is concrete, simplistic, and for half of America, freeing. Because people do think ugly thoughts, and if they want permission to let their misogynistic desire for control run wild, who better to validate them than the President? If they want to project their thoughts onto a President, who better than someone who changes their mind on a whim without consideration for the consequences?
At a rally last year in Green Bay, Wisconsin, dressed in a neon orange vest, Trump expanded on his latest talking point. “I’ll protect them,” he said, “whether the women like it or not.” The crowds behind him cheered as they held up Trump Force 47 signs. This kind of speech around women is new; as Trump won over the voters he lost after the Dobbs decision in the summer of 2022 that inspired this series. Trump was initially proud of his hand in revoking Roe, and may still be though it’s difficult to tell where his true intentions lie.
At the time, he called himself “the most pro-life president ever.” But since then, the shifting political climate around abortion, particularly amongst Republican women, has been well-documented. Non-religious Republican women are favoring abortion more than they ever have in the past, and religious women (in particular, evangelical) seem to be ambivalent now that abortion bans have been implemented in many states. While the procedure became politicized in the 1960s, it’s in recent years that we’ve seen Republicans diverge, primarily on the lines of sex and religion
And so, Trump slammed the breaks. He wavered on the Florida abortion ban, first supporting it, and then calling it too extreme. He has evaded questions on whether he would support a national abortion ban and during a town hall for female voters, called himself “the father of IVF,” presupposing that he gave birth to the idea. (That would actually be Dr. Patrick Steptoe and Sir Robert Edwards, the latter of whom won the Nobel Prize.) He repeated this phrase at a rally in Nebraska. His language leans eerily on that of family, isolationism, and control, and yet because of his casual, meandering style, it’s difficult for many to see.
Linguist and cognitive scientist George Lakoff has written about how family models influence political discourse. He looks at what differentiates the way liberals and conservatives think and proposes the Strict Father model as an example aligned with the latter. In this model, moral righteousness justifies authority and discipline. The head of the family protects them from the dangers that lurk outside, as father knows best. In using the language of the family, Trump solidifies this idea in the minds of conservative voters.
Linguists, psychologists, and political commentators have spent (billions of) hours and (billions of) words dissecting the speech patterns of Trump: Is he bored? Is he delusional? Is he experiencing cognitive decline? Is he smart? Is he a narcissist?
As much as his linguist gymnastics result in pure confusion, they also allow voters to project their own ideas onto him. He could mean anything, and thus, for the average conservative or moderate voter, he means everything. Trump is the very definition of Orwell’s Big Brother or Lakoff’s Strict Father under the guise of an unrehearsed, no-bullshitter, in the eyes of his supporters. He throws around words like they mean nothing. For a country tiring of authority, this authoritarian—the very type of person they should abhor—has ironically, and smartly, taken advantage of the English language to make-believe, and as president, he’ll do whatever he wants with it.
As will pro-life supporters, buoyed by his flip-flopping speech. Since the onslaught of state-based abortion restrictions post-Dobbs, the use of abortion medication has increased significantly. The latest data shows that now 60% of all abortions in the United States use this method. Last May, Louisiana successfully reclassified mifepristone and misoprostol, two key ingredients in medication abortions that have been FDA-approved since 2000, as “controlled dangerous substances.” Texas, Idaho, Kansas, and Missouri, are following suit.
Fear-mongering through legal references to “abortion trafficking” and the “recruitment of minors” shifts public perception and diminishes the likelihood that doctors and pharmacists will prescribe abortion medication. It likens the pills to addictive narcotics. And as in the War on Drugs, this language invokes the same misogynistic, racist, and xenophobic views. American Life League makes the connection explicit, declaring that the “abortion pill cartel is alive and well.”
Trump has, unsurprisingly, gone both ways. In response to whether he would direct the FDA to revoke access to mifepristone, Trump said, “Sure, you could do things that would supplement. Absolutely.” Although he later told Time Magazine an abortion pill ban would be highly unlikely, his pick of FDA head, Marty Makary, isn’t exactly reassuring. Makary has vocalized his opposition to abortion.
“Here I am,” declared Trump during his inauguration on Monday. Here we are, at the start of his second presidential term. There has been much predicted about the four years ahead of us. Some of the policy changes we may see happen in the first week. Over the course of these years, his speech will land upon the willing ears of those desperate to declare right from wrong, take control, and think in terms of binaries.
Views are cyclical. We progress, and occasionally regress, though not all the way. As the next four years unfold, look for the signals amongst the Orwellian noise. And who knows? The next president is sure to surprise us.
Divya Mehra is a writer and artist-in-residence at NYU Tisch. She teaches classes on visual symbolism and experimental storytelling. She holds degrees in Art + Technology and Economics and previously worked in strategy consulting.
Header image by the author.
Read The Semiotics of a Movement series:
Introducing a Visual Exploration of Reproductive Rights
Fetal Imagery and the Lure of the Unseen
How “Pro-Life” Became a Marketing Campaign
Picturing Life and Death: How Gerri Santoro Became a Symbol of Public Outrage
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