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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Glob. Womens Health

Sec. Contraception and Family Planning

Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fgwh.2025.1533813

This article is part of the Research Topic The Impact of US Health Policy on Women's Health and Wellbeing View all articles

Contested Narratives: A Qualitative Analysis of Abortion Testimonies in Louisiana

Provisionally accepted
Martha Silva Martha Silva 1*Jeni Stolow Jeni Stolow 1Micki Burdick Micki Burdick 2Amy Mercieca Amy Mercieca 1
  • 1 Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, New Orleans, United States
  • 2 University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Introduction: Following the Supreme Court's 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, Louisiana enacted a "trigger law" banning nearly all abortions. Attempts to reform existing restrictive legislation so as to allow for abortions under exceptions have been unsuccessful to date. This study aims to describe how abortion discourse is framed in public testimony around House Bill 346 in the 2023 Louisiana legislative session, which attempted to pass an abortion exception for pregnancy in the case of rape or incest.Methods: We conducted a conventional qualitative content analysis utilizing a rhetorical lens, using testimony transcripts from the May 10, 2023, Louisiana Administration of Criminal Justice Committee hearing. An iterative coding approach allowed us to categorize salient themes, language patterns, speaker characteristics, emotional tones, and rhetorical strategies. Demographic characteristics were ascribed to speakers based on perceived gender and race when not self-identified.Results: Testimony analysis revealed four primary themes: (1) conflicting representations of abortion, (2) religion’s role in shaping discourse, (3) humanization of fetuses versus pregnant individuals, and (4) debate over available resources for survivors and children. Abortion is represented as being traumatic, adding to the trauma caused by sexual violence, while representing childbearing as healing from trauma. Being conceived as a result of sexual violence is used as an identity marker worthy of protection. Religious rhetoric permeates testimony both in support and in opposition to abortion exceptions, making a “pro-life” stance the starting point for debate. Lastly, we find evidence of dehumanization of survivors’ and others’ experience.Conclusions: The testimonies around HB346 expose deeply polarized discourse that reflects moral, religious, and ethical conflicts, as well as mismatched conversations that are unlikely to persuade opposing sides. Addressing these dissonant narratives requires nuanced advocacy strategies and resources to support effective testimony.

    Keywords: Abortion, discourse, sexual violence, legislation, reproductive health

    Received: 25 Nov 2024; Accepted: 31 Mar 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Silva, Stolow, Burdick and Mercieca. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Martha Silva, Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, New Orleans, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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