This analysis shows how metaphor shapes political action and attitudes in the American abortion debate, implicating polarisation and partisanship.
This paper examines metaphor in the American abortion debate. It takes a systematic and fine-grained approach to analysing war conceptualisations in abortion-related speeches and statements from the Republican and Democrat parties between 2009 and 2023. Analysis focuses on the conceptual framing abortion debate is war , and how various linguistic features constitute this world. This approach demonstrates how conceptual metaphors can be used to shape social attitude and justify political action — in the case of abortion, demonstrating how war conceptualisation has enacted a culture conducive to polarisation and partisanship.
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Sophie Frankpitt (2025) studied this question.
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