The Polarizing Topic of Abortion

 Many of the previous blog posts cover what is political polarization and what does it look like online. The topic of this post relates to a current polarizing topic on social media and in society in general, that being the topic of abortion. There has been talks in the news about the Supreme Court voting on whether or not the abortion pill should be banned. The Supreme Court just delayed the decision on it, and it will most likely take months for a confirmed decision on the pills. Whatever the outcome may be, the opposing losing side will be furious at the results, potentially ending up in civil unrest or perhaps just peaceful protests. Abortion is an overtly political issue with Pew Research Center finding that the majority of Republicans in favor of the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade while the majority of Democrats strongly disagree with the decision (Blazina 2022). With Joe Biden expected to announce his run for a second term soon, Democrats will most likely make the right for abortion a main policy initiative in the upcoming 2024 Presidential Election. Doing research on Twitter I found that the accounts under the #abortion and #abortionpill have been labelling the issue as "GOP civil war over abortion" and calling Republicans fascists.

On the other side of the political spectrum, I searched the #ProLife to try to find the overall theme of the Republican view on abortion. I found a good bit of democratic leaning people posting a lot in the #, however I was able to find enough Republican view posts on abortion. The main theme I came across is that Republicans use the justification of Christianity and their view on abortion being immoral. 

In conclusion, abortion is to be found as one of the main polarizing political topics on social media and in real life. The few twitter posts shared above shows the difference between the two sides. The last picture added for the Republican view, shows just how polarizing abortion is, and how it is easily found on social media. The goal of this post was not trying to advocate for either side, but instead show how both sides respond to the issue. It should be noted that the last post includes a controversial racist quote that should not be fit for discussions of abortion online. Threatening the use of violence if "another basketball rolls into the yard" should be condemned to the highest, especially with all of the mass shootings happening in the U.S and the message being implicitly racist. The threat of violence should not be included in the discussion of abortion or for any political discussion for that matter. The picture symbolizes the use of an assault rifle, leading to a future blog post on the debate on guns in the U.S.

Reference

Pew Research Center. (2022, July 15). Key facts about abortion views in the U.S. | Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/07/15/key-facts-about-the-abortion-debate-in-america/