If you read this newsletter, it’s because you care about abortion rights and are in the know; so I’d really love some of your expert reader advice on the terminology that Abortion, Every Day uses.
I’ve been writing a lot about Republicans’ focus on crisis pregnancy centers—from lawmakers trying to increase taxpayer funding to conservative attempts at rebranding. You also probably know that the Associated Press changed their language guidelines recently to move from ‘crisis pregnancy center’ to ‘anti-abortion center’. It’s a trend I’ve noticed elsewhere (not always for the better).
‘Anti-abortion center’ is definitely accurate, but I find myself torn because ‘crisis pregnancy center’ is more recognizable—and not in a good way! It has all that negative baggage attached to it, so I wonder if it makes sense to stay the course.
Since I’m a bit stumped, I thought I’d ask you all what you think. Let me know in the poll below if you think the newsletter should stick with ‘crisis pregnancy center’, change to ‘anti-abortion center’, or use something else entirely. (You can leave suggestions in comments, I’ll keep them open for everyone—not just paying subscribers.)
It took me a long time to figure out what crisis pregnancy centers are and to educate others about them, so they are an immediately recognizable issue to me. I also would imagine that when one wants to research them and their history that would be the term most likely to work in a search. Maybe the previous comment has a good answer: "Anti-abortion Crisis Pregnancy Centers"- it's long but covers everything - maybe could abbreviate as "Anti-abortion CPCs"
I like Anti-abortion "Crisi Pregnancy Centers" but maybe you could have a note, something similar to content warnings or trigger warnings, at the beginning of your article and then call them anti-abortion facilities or "crisis pregnancy facilities", throughout the rest of the article, whichever seems to be called for.
<i> [Anti-abortion facilities (such as "Crisis Pregnancy Centers" or "Pregnancy Resource Centers") advertise themselves as helping women cope with unplanned pregnancies, but their primary aim is to prevent women from getting abortions.] </i>