Introduction
Planned Parenthood was founded in 1916 (Planned Parenthood), and has been the face of controversy and political infighting ever since. It has especially come to the forefront of political discourse since Planned Parenthood has announced that they will be withdrawing from Title X funding due to the current administration's policies (McCammon 2019). Since Planned Parenthood has historically provided healthcare while also having the ability to administer abortion, it has been a point of contention between the Pro-Life and Pro-Choice movements. Although Planned Parenthood does not only administer abortion, the source of the discourse is largely around the availability of abortion at these facilities. Since there are over 600 health facilities nationwide (Planned Parenthood), its comparative popularity has led it to be the face of the fight regarding abortion.
The use of twitter, with both groups having equal access to the same space would therefore be a good way to judge the current climate on the debate. Because of the fact that Planned Parenthood is the face of the current abortion debate, the discourse about Planned Parenthood generally coincides with #ProChoice, #ProLife, and #PlannedParenthood. In following these hashtags, I examined the following questions: how do numbers of Pro-Life and Pro-Choice people compare? Do political parties align with stances? In order to get the most realistic picture of the debate, a neutral hashtag needed to be used, one which both sides commonly utilized.
Methods
In order to gather as much information as possible, I considered three possible hashtags. #ProLife, #ProChoice, and #PlannedParenthood were the three most popular hashtags regarding the discourse surrounding Planned Parenthood. However, #PlannedParenthood was best to find a more comprehensive gathering of the entire discussion.
The TAGS program was utilized in order to gather data, gathering over 3000 tweets. However, codifying all 3000 tweets would be nearly impossible, so 100 of the most recent tweets at the time of data collection were used. The first thing which was needed was to determine the stance of those who are commenting about Planned Parenthood, and to find if the majority of tweets were supportive or negative towards the organization.
The tweets were largely split, with the slight majority of twitter users speaking of Planned Parenthood in a negative manner. There was little nuance in any of the tweets. Everyone who had a stance took it strongly. There was no sense of confusion or ambiguity in any stance. Tweets that were classified as 'Neutral' were classified as such for not presenting an argument. Instead, they were tweets made by news companies and journalists, as well as people intending on striking conversation and asking others about their stances.
After categorizing these tweets, they were further separated into categories such as rationale for their positions, perceived gender, and political party affiliation.
The most difficult aspect of categorizing the tweets were to classify the rationale of each tweet. Many tweets were simply stating that they were supporting or opposing Planned Parenthood and all of its services. These tweets were categorized as "Generally Pro-Life" and "Generally Pro-Choice". The greatest claim for those who are against Planned Parenthood was on the basis of "baby murder," in reference to their abortion services. Other interesting perspectives included allegations that Planned Parenthood was racist, and a variety of conspiracy theories with differing degrees of outlandishness, none of which had any proof alongside the allegations. Those who support Planned Parenthood largely kept to the health and rights of women. However, there was still a considerable portion of people who supported Planned Parenthood on the basis of being against Donald Trump, in reference to the aforementioned Title X funding. I found it hard to classify every tweet in a limited number of categories due to the wide variety of rationale. It did not feel right to classify something such as anti-god, eugenics, or baby murder rationale under a similar rationale. It also did not feel right to have women's health and women's rights under the same category, even though the two are similar as they relate to supporting women, I concluded that women's rights and women's health are distinct enough to qualify for separate sections on the graph.
One unsurprising aspect about classifying the tweets were the political party associations. Nearly every person who was pro-life was openly Republican, while every person who was pro-choice was openly Democrat. Those who were 'Right-Leaning' and 'Left-Leaning' stated their stances on the issue while being from another country. Other countries do not specifically fall to Republican or Democrat, and the results of the graph needed to reflect that.Those who were apolitical were corporations or groups of people who avoided any political connotation.
The one person who crossed party lines was someone who identified as a black democrat. However, several things lead those who read his tweets to question his true identity.
There were no pictures of the poster, and he posted many conspiracy theories against nearly every big-name democratic politician or organization. In fact, there was no way of verifying his identity in any way, shape, or form. This raised the question of the prevalence of potential bots which would attempt to change the discourse regarding Planned Parenthood. However, one thing which proved difficult was the inability to differentiate between a bot and a person who desires anonymity based on the fact that they are running a politics-based account.
It was determined that the desire for anonymity was the most probable reason for the lack of identity regarding this account. This account has been relatively active since 2014, and even promotes a blog containing many conspiracy theories. This desire for anonymity became a problem when trying to determine the gender of the twitter users.
Many twitter users had to be categorized as "unspecified" as there was little way to verify their gender identity other than context, such as with the previously mentioned twitter user, MrGreyGhost1. Those who were listed as truly "unspecified" had no way to determine their gender, whereas "unspecified male" and "unspecified female" people were determined based on their names, profiles, or pictures. Those listed as "Corporations" were news sources, religious organizations, or organized groups of people which could not be deemed either sex.
It was surprising that there were more males in the hashtag than females. Planned Parenthood is an organization primarily for women's health and family planning, and therefore it is more likely that women have experience with the organization outside of twitter.
Limitations
The most limiting factor in creating a comprehensive report about the public's current opinions of Planned Parenthood would be the potential for bots to monopolize the discourse and therefore create skewed results. It is extremely difficult to determine whether a twitter user is an anonymous poster or a bot. Both are possible, especially given the proven divisiveness of the topic. Since Planned Parenthood and Donald Trump have become increasingly at odds, it is likely that #PlannedParenthood could become a breeding ground for Russian bots to attempt to influence the public. A key example of this would be the 2016 election meddling, as confirmed by the national government (McKew 2018). If anyone thought it could benefit them to hijack the hashtag with bots, it would be very easy to then control the stream of information coming through the hashtag. More research will therefore need to be done in order to distinguish real opinions from fake bots.
Conclusion
Planned Parenthood is a divisive topic in the real world, just as it is on twitter. Those who argue about it feel very strongly, leading to more emotional arguments on public forums. Those who are against Planned Parenthood often saw it as a baby-murder facility, while those who are Pro-Planned Parenthood see those against it as attempting to step on the rights of women. In that way, twitter can be seen as a unique way to poll and collect data from people with strong enough opinions to say so on a public forum. From Roe v. Wade to present day, the topic of abortion has maintained relevance in public discourse. With a topic as controversial as Planned Parenthood, it is likely that the debate on its funding, services, and political influence will continue for years to come.
Works Cited
McCammon, Sarah. “Planned Parenthood To Withdraw From Title X, Unless Court Intervenes.” NPR, NPR, 14 Aug. 2019, https://www.npr.org/2019/08/14/751062602/planned-parenthood-to-withdraw-from-title-x-unless-court-intervenes.
McKew, Molly. "Did Russia Affect the 2016 Election? It's Now Undeniable." Wired, Conde Nast, 17 Feb. 2018, https://www.wired.com/story/did-russia-affect-the-2016-election-its-now-undeniable/.
Parenthood, Planned. “The History & Impact of Planned Parenthood.” Planned Parenthood, https://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/who-we-are/our-history.