How to Talk About Abortion

The language we use to talk about abortion continues to evolve, as does the legal

landscape that shapes who can access abortion when and where. This guide may be helpful for advocates, storytellers, policymakers, partner organizations, journalists, and others.

General Guidelines

Lead with a statement about our shared values. Follow by explicitly naming who is violating our shared values and explain their motives. Motivate your audience by reminding them of past successes, and end with a call to action and a vision of the future we all desire.

Main Message

Everyone should have the freedom to make the reproductive health care decisions that are best for their health, families, and futures. Yet some politicians want to take away our reproductive freedom — including our right to abortion, birth control, and IVF — because they want to control the decisions we make about our bodies and impose their views on the rest of us. Anti-abortion politicians know just how unpopular their views are, which is why so many of them are running from their records and saying one thing while doing another. But we know better.

Michiganders believe that at no point during pregnancy should politicians have a say in the medical decisions we make with our doctors and our families. That’s why Michiganders came out in record numbers two years ago to protect our reproductive freedom by passing Proposal 3 and electing sexual and reproductive freedom champions up and down the ballot. All the freedoms that Michiganders have fought for are on the line, but we decide what comes next.

Facts and Statistics

• 92% of Michiganders think abortion should be legal in at least some or all cases; only 4% think it should be against the law in all cases. [Source: EPIC-MRA poll, Oct. 24-28, 2024]
  

• Michigan’s Proposal 3 in 2022 passed with 57% support and only 43% opposed. [Source: MI Secretary of State official 2022 general election results].
  

• The number of out-of-state patients seeking abortion care at Michigan Planned Parenthood health centers tripled after Donald Trump’s hand-picked U.S. Supreme Court justices overturned the abortion protections granted by Roe v. Wade in 2022. Through 2024, the rate has held steady at triple what it was before the Dobbs decision. [Source: Planned Parenthood of Michigan]
  

• 1 in every 4 women and trans and nonbinary people will need an abortion in their lifetime. Everyone knows someone who has needed or may someday need an abortion. [Source: Guttmacher Institute]
  

• Only 1% of abortions take place after 21 weeks gestation. Abortions later in pregnancy are extremely rare, and nearly all of those that do are because of fatal fetal diagnoses or the person’s health or life are in danger. [Kaiser Family Foundation]
  

• More than 63% of abortions are medication abortion, and 27% are procedural abortions. The percentage of medication abortions is likely higher due to self-managed medication abortions, which take place outside the formal health care system and are not tracked. [Guttmacher Institute]

Trustworthy sources for data include the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the Guttmacher Institute, the Kaiser Family Foundation, Society of Family Planning, and the CDC.

FAQ on Abortion

What are the barriers to abortion access?

Barriers that people must overcome to obtain an abortion include access to reliable transportation, the ability to take time off work, challenges finding child care, financial resources, and abortion stigma. Many people spend weeks figuring out the logistics, and by the time they reach a Planned Parenthood health center, some are experiencing medical complications that could have been avoided if they didn’t have to overcome these barriers first. 

With the passage of both Prop 3 in 2022 and the Reproductive Health Act in 2023, what’s left to do?

Much work remains to protect reproductive freedom and access. Some of this includes removing harmful restrictions such as Michigan’s 24-hour delay law, state-mandated biased counseling requirements, and a ban preventing advanced practice clinicians (like nurses and midwives) from providing abortion care. These were temporarily lifted by a preliminary injunction issued by the Michigan Court of Claims while a lawsuit challenging them moves forward. Another restriction is the ban on Medicaid coverage for abortion care. This restriction is also being challenged in court. Another is the mandatory parental consent for minors who need abortion care. While we wish that all young people had a safe parent to support them through decisions about an unplanned pregnancy, many young people do not have that support. 

Can abortion bans affect us here in Michigan?

Michiganders have worked hard to protect our reproductive freedom. Yet decisions made at the federal level by the President, Congress, and/or U.S. Supreme Court can supersede state laws. 

Even at the state level, we must continue to protect and expand access to abortion and reproductive health care. If anti-abortion politicians took back control of one or both chambers of the Michigan Legislature, it would halt legislative progress. Anti-abortion groups could file lawsuits against Michigan’s new abortion protections and weaponize our courts by bringing their case before the justices on the Michigan Supreme Court. Anti-abortion justices could use their power to chip away or strike down these protections, as the U.S. Supreme Court has done. 

Michiganders have already been impacted by abortion bans in other states. The number of out-of-state patients traveling to Michigan for abortion care that is banned in their own state has tripled since the U.S. Supreme Court took away abortion protections in 2022. That rate has held steady ever since. The increased volume has pushed the soonest available appointments further out, lengthening the amount of time people have to wait to be seen for their time-sensitive care. This has resulted in longer delays for Michiganders seeking sexual and reproductive health services, not just abortion.

What about “late-term” abortions? Do you support abortion up to birth?

Let’s be clear — this is not a medical term. These terms were coined by anti-abortion advocates who seek to stigmatize abortion care and mislead the public. 

The truth is that only 1 percent of abortions take place after 21 weeks gestation, and nearly all of those that do are because of serious fetal diagnoses, the person’s health or life are in danger, or barriers to care that cause delays in obtaining an abortion. 

At no point during a pregnancy should politicians have a say in the medical decisions we make with our doctors and our families. 

What do you say to someone who says they mostly oppose abortion but are open to some exceptions?

As we have seen in states across the country, exceptions do not work. Some states have banned or severely restricted abortion and have laws the profess to provide exceptions for rape, incest, serious fetal diagnoses, the person’s life, or their major bodily functions. Anti-abortion politicians are increasingly claiming that they agree with limited exceptions — even despite having long records that show otherwise — in an attempt to appear moderate because they know their views on abortion are unpopular. The reality is, exceptions do not work.

By their very design, these laws are vaguely written by politicians with no medical qualifications who want to sow confusion and prevent health care providers and their legal teams from being able to discern whether a patient may qualify for them. This has created a chilling effect, with legal teams instructing doctors to withhold life-saving treatment and tell their patients to wait out in parking lots until they are close enough to death — and by then, it is sometimes too late. Other “exceptions” require survivors of sexual assault to report the crimes committed against them to provide “proof,” a process that can re-traumatize them and should never be a requirement for receiving care.

At no point during a pregnancy are politicians qualified to make medical decisions that should be made between patients, their doctors, and their families.

Why are anti-abortion politicians also trying to control birth control and IVF?

Many anti-abortion politicians incorrectly believe that birth control and emergency contraception (“the morning after pill”) can cause an abortion; they do not. They prevent a pregnancy from happening in the first place; they do not end a pregnancy nor do they affect the development of the fetus.

Other anti-abortion politicians want to control the decisions we make about our bodies and impose their personal opinions on sex, reproduction, and sexuality on the rest of us.

Anti-abortion politicians are backpedaling on IVF, claiming that they support the treatment despite voting against it or supporting “fetal personhood” policies that would effectively ban it. Anti-abortion policies claiming that an embryo is a “person” with the same rights as a child from the moment of conception would effectively shut down IVF clinics. People could be criminalized for accidentally harming embryos in the process or discarding unused embryos — effectively allowing politicians to take control away from people trying to conceive, preventing them from growing their families. 

Is abortion safe?

Yes! Mifepristone is one of two medications commonly prescribed for medication abortion, which now accounts for over 60 percent of abortions nationwide. It has a 99 percent safety record and has been used by over 5 million people in the United States for abortion and miscarriage care since the FDA approved it more than 20 years ago.

Procedural abortion is the other type of abortion and includes suction abortions (also called vacuum aspirations) or dilation and extraction (D&E) abortions.

Self-managed abortion is also safe. This is when someone decides to have an abortion outside of the health care system without the medical supervision of a provider. Research has shown self-managing one’s abortion with medication is a safe way to end a pregnancy. 

Abortion is safer than many common medical procedures. The risk of complication or mortality from abortion is less than the risk from wisdom tooth removal, cancer screening colonoscopy, and plastic surgery. Only about 2% of people who get an abortion experience a complication. Most complications are minor and easily treatable with follow-up procedures or antibiotics.

In both Planned Parenthood health centers and hospital settings, medication abortion and procedural abortions are provided by physicians and advanced practice clinicians who have undergone years of training.

Say This, Not That

Say This	Not That
Abortion, end a pregnancy	Terminate a pregnancy, abort the fetus
Reproductive freedom, reproductive rights, freedom to decide	Right to choose, pro-choice, women's rights
Decision, decide	Choice, choose
Anti-abortion groups/politicians	Pro-life, abortion opponents
Medication abortion, procedural abortion	Chemical abortion, surgical abortion
Pregnant people; patients; women, trans, and nonbinary people; women and other pregnant people; people who can become pregnant	Pregnant women
Freedom to decide what to do with their bodies; freedom to make reproductive health care decisions; freedom to make the decisions that are best for their health, family, and future	Bodily autonomy
Unintended pregnancy	Unwanted pregnancy, unplanned pregnancy
Pregnant person's life, patient's life	Life of the mother

Additional Questions on How to Talk About Abortion?

For communicating on specific topics or answering other challenging questions, reach out to our Communications Director at media@ppmi.org.