The number of published discussions about abortion in the United States has decreased in recent years.
“Abortion” was used 170,000 times in published English-language American sources such as news stories, press releases, academic articles, laws, and legal analyses in 2024, according to LexisNexis.
The period with the fewest discussions of abortion in 2024 began in late September and continues through the time of this article’s publication, October 10.
This is a stark contrast to previous years.
There were 584,000 usages of “abortion” in the American press in 2022. In 2023, there were 180,000 discussions.
Discussions of abortion shot upward starting in 2021 and increased speed as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), the Supreme Court Case that returned the abortion question to the states, was working its way through the lower courts.
The trend reached its zenith in January 2022 and gradually decreased throughout the year, even as Politico published a leaked draft of the Court majority’s opinion in May and the final decision was issued in June 2022.
This same phenomenon was generally observed in many swing states.
Applying the same filters to the LexisNexis database and searching for states such as Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin revealed roughly the same results.
There were a few exceptions, however.
One exception was Arizona.
In the Grand Canyon state, discussions of abortion have never been higher. This is reflected in the polls for their senate race between Democrat Congressman Ruben Gallego and former Republican Gubernatorial Kari Lake. Gallego is pro-abortion, and Lake’s position has varied, but she currently says that the federal government should not take action on the issue.
Nevada’s usage of the word “abortion” tanked last year but has rallied and is quickly approaching peak levels again.
North Carolina’s discussions around abortion peaked around the same time as the national trend and then plateaued. A slight decrease was observed this year; however, the data has remained roughly the same since early 2022.
Abortion is a more straightforward topic to search for than other topics like “border security” because it is harder to obscure results through euphemisms or innuendos.
With any immigration issue, the lexicon varies widely by political persuasion. Documenting each phrase usage and aggregating the data to establish a greater trend would require countless hours.
For example, discussing “border security” without using that exact phrase is possible.
If discussing a border wall, border patrol, customs, border surveillance technology, mirror patrols, illegal crossings, the Invasion Clause, or Operation Lone Star, the topic of “border security” can be delved into without using the exact phrase.
Moreover, phrases like “illegal immigrant,” “illegal alien,” “unlawful migrant,” “migrant,” “undocumented,” “undocumented Americans,” “newcomer,” and “border crosser” are all secondary issues related to border security and necessitate considerations about “border security” even if this exact phrase is not used.
Verbal gymnastics proves to be harder with “abortion,” partly because it is the most widely used name for the medical procedure. There are a few euphemisms like “pregnancy termination” that come to mind, but there are far fewer than immigration-related terms.
Secondary terms like “mifepristone,” a drug that induces abortion, are likely to still co-occur with the word “abortion,” and discussions of “bodily autonomy” can, in context, refer to other things like the right to refuse the COVID vaccine or seek euthanasia for the terminally ill rather than abortion.
A previous search by The Dallas Express revealed that border security has never been discussed more in the United States than in 2024.
Although “border security” was published “65,000” times in 2024, compared to 170,000 for “abortion,” it is just one of the many aforementioned terms that refer to the same topic. Including all related terms would yield a much higher figure.
Additionally, LexisNexis lacks the ability to record some of the popular social media trends related to border security that are not absorbed into their database.
LexisNexis is a research and data analytics platform and archive used by researchers from varying industries and academia to retrieve news stories, case law, statutes, legal analysis, academic articles, and other important documents. It can also examine nearly every published usage of words or phrases during specific time periods. For terms like “abortion,” the database archive dates back to 1877.
Just because “abortion” is being discussed does not mean that all discussions are positive or negative.
LexisNexis would sweep up press releases highlighting anti-abortion from Texas Right to Life just as much as it would pro-abortion missives from EMILYs List.
There is no yearly expected level of abortion discussions because the amount varies considerably based on current events. However, 60,000-70,000 discussions would have been the rough yearly average in the 2010s. The 2020s have yielded a far higher annual average. Still, if current trends continue, 2024 will come in close to several thousand below 2023.
Polls have repeatedly indicated that immigration and abortion are two of the most important issues to voters. Prospective voters’ priority on these issues often directly corresponds to whether they prefer former President Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris in the November 2024 general election.