Representations of Pro-Choice Protesters in US News Media

Abstract In June 2022, the US Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling and, with that decision, revoked access to safe abortion for many women across the country. The decision was anticipated and immediately followed by protests from pro-choice campaigners, who challenged the decision, arguing that it would pose a threat to the health of women across the US and compound existing inequalities relating to ethnicity and social class. In this article, we use a corpus-based approach to Critical Discourse Analysis to examine the representation of the protests in US national newspapers between May and July of 2022. Focussing in particular on the representation of the protests’ worthiness, unity, numbers and commitment, we find that generally the protests are afforded legitimacy in the coverage, with only the representation of worthiness bucking this trend. Following the analysis, we consider the possible motivations for this somewhat complex picture and consider the broader implications and future directions for similar such protests and women’s reproductive rights more generally.