In the abortion debate, there are two sides: pro-choice, and pro-life. Now, one of these two groups automatically has a way of making people feel guilty if they're not a part of it. Any guesses? Saying that you are "pro-life" essentially attacks all of the people who are "pro-choice" by suggesting that they are "against life". We may as well change the name of "pro-choice" to "pro-death", because that's what the framing bias of this debate is insinuating.
What is framing bias, you ask? Basically, it's how the wording of a something affects our response to it. This article by the New York Times is an excellent piece on how framing works in politics. For example, instead of using the term "drilling for oil" they use the term "exploring for energy" a far less invasive term than the destructive image one receives when one thinks of drilling anything. Instead of attacking the "government" they attack "Washington", which focuses all criticism to the President's side of things, pulling the rest of the government out of the cross-hairs.
You can see framing bias everywhere. Read anything even slightly political, and you can be sure that there is some aspect that is trying to make your mind change about something. In this article, the term "foreign aid" is used in an experiment to see whether people are more likely to donate if the term is included or not. They found that when "foreign aid" was excluded from the article, Democrats opted to keep their money in the States, while the support of women drastically decreased; including it did the opposite. Why? Because including the term "foreign aid" implies that your money is actually going to help somebody in need.
So, hopefully I've given you something to think about. The next time you hear the phrase "pro-life", think about what that definition implies, and what it actually means. Just because somebody is "pro-choice", it doesn't mean they want to kill babies -- it just means their group name is a bit more neutral than the others.
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