Anti-Abortion Rhetoric on 4chan Stretches Beyond Single-Issue Extremism

The most extreme violence of the anti-abortion movement has long been understood in law enforcement and academia as a form of single-issue terrorism – political violence committed in the name of an isolated cause, disconnected from broader social, political or religious goals.

But this categorization oversimplifies the strategic vision of many anti-abortion extremists and obscures the ideological and material interconnectivity they share with other hard-right movements. The anti-abortion bomber Eric Rudolph, for example, targeted two abortion clinics, a lesbian nightclub and the 1996 Summer Olympics in protest of what he called “the abominable sanctioning of abortion on demand” and, notably, “the ideals of global socialism.” He also held extreme antisemitic, white supremacist and antigovernment beliefs.

This link between anti-abortion extremism and other types of far-right ideas is evident today, nearly three decades after Rudolph’s deadly bombing campaign.

A new Hatewatch analysis – based on a monthlong sample of posts on the anonymous message board 4chan – reveals an interest beyond regulating abortion among a significant number of users who posted comments about abortion. It demonstrates a strong correlation with the desire to punish women, conceal the existence of trans people, control the ability of nonwhite people to have families, stoke fear and violence against Jewish people, and impose Christian supremacy on everyone.

4chan is known for its racist and misogynistic online trolling culture and its role in the formation of the “alt-right,” a version of the white nationalist movement that came to prominence during the 2010s.

Southern Poverty Law Center researchers used Pyrra, a threat intelligence platform, to generate a sample of posts throughout the month of December 2023 that included key words associated with abortion. The 3,100 posts were then manually reviewed to confirm that each was discussing abortion. The process excluded irrelevant posts, such as when abortion was being used as an insult. This resulted in a general sample of 2,636 relevant posts made across 47 different boards on 4chan. The board “/pol/” (politically incorrect) accounted for 44.6% of all posts in the final sample.

The content of each post was then manually categorized as either supportive, opposed to or neutral on abortion. SPLC researchers then developed a set of key words associated with misogyny, anti-LGBTQ+ bigotry, racism and antisemitism. Posts containing these key words were manually reviewed to ensure they belonged in each category.

Posts that were neutral on abortion made up the largest category in the sample, (44.8%), while just 24.8% supported it and 30.4% opposed it. Additionally, 39% of posts included at least one form of hate and nearly 15% included more than one. Hateful posts were significantly more likely to oppose abortion compared to the general sample. Further, in this sample, hate and opposition to abortion were directly related. The more types of hate present in a single post, the more likely it was to be hostile to abortion rights. Posts containing all four categories of hate analyzed were 4.5 times more likely to oppose abortion (98.4%) than posts that were not hateful (21.7%).

Misogyny

Approximately 18% of posts discussing abortion included misogynistic language, including statements expressing belief in women’s inherent inferiority, gendered slurs and terminology specific to the manosphere, a virtual network of male supremacist communities. Also:

• The majority (64.2%) of posts within this sample opposed abortion – twice as likely as the entire sample.
• Misogyny was the most likely of the four types of hate analyzed to appear alongside other kinds of hate, such as racism or antisemitism. This finding is in line with previous research, such as a 2022 Marcon Institute poll which found that strong support for male supremacist beliefs significantly predicted white nationalist anti-abortion views.

While research has demonstrated that access to abortion enables women to join the workforce and gives them more agency in their relationships, many 4chan users pointed to this empowerment as a destructive consequence. On /pol/, one user lamented: “Women got rights and in exchange what did we receive? Higher divorce rates, lower birth rates, single mothers abusing welfare, mudsharks, abortions, s***skins flooding our nations due to our low birth rates, kids being turned into tr*****s and f*****s, lower wages because women flooded the labour market, and the list goes on.”

Many of these posts presented abortion as a corrupting feminist tool that is destroying the Western family. To “restore the nuclear family and civilized society,” one user advocated the creation of state-mandated arranged marriages in addition to a prohibition on abortion – an idea often endorsed by misogynistic incels, male supremacist men who believe they are being unjustly deprived of sex. “Give men full control over their wife,” the user wrote. “Abolish rape laws, divorce laws, ban abortion, homosexuality, [transgender] medicine/surgery.”

Just 11% of misogynistic posts expressed support for abortion. Even among these, many users still endorsed intrusive state efforts to violate bodily autonomy. One user argued that “if you opt for an abortion, the follow up sterilization procedure is non-negotiable. Ovaries are gone.” Similarly, another user wrote, “You should be allowed one free abortion; if you need more than that, you should be made permanently infertile and put on a wh*** registry.”

Anti-LGBTQ+ hate

The anti-LGBTQ+ movement runs parallel to the anti-abortion movement. Many of the same activists and organizations that have been leading the charge against reproductive justice have worked to ban gender-affirming care and erode LGBTQ+ rights. These paired movements aim to enforce fixed gender roles and norms by denying individuals their right to make decisions about their own bodies. The SPLC analysis found that:

• Anti-LGBTQ+ language appeared in approximately 14% of the posts discussing abortion. Of these, more than half (61.5%) included transphobic statements and slurs.
• Anti-LGBTQ+ posts were twice as likely to oppose abortion as the full sample.

Many users characterized abortion and the growing visibility and acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community as symptoms of America’s moral and cultural decline. The rights of individuals to make decisions about their reproduction, through abortion and gender-affirming care, were often framed as tandem efforts to reduce the population. One user wrote, “[tr*****s] support white genocide, they support low white birth rates, they support immigration, they support affirmative action, they support conversion surgery for kids, they support abortion.” The term “white genocide” describes a white nationalist myth of a strategic plot to bring about the extinction of the white race through mass immigration or genocide. This dangerous narrative was at the core of the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in 2017 and has inspired numerous acts of terrorism across the globe.

Racism and abortion

Both the pro- and anti-abortion movements have long histories of white supremacy. Following the end of the Civil War, those interested in preserving a system of white supremacy identified the importance of giving the state authority over women’s bodies and reproduction. By preventing white women from terminating pregnancies while forcibly sterilizing non-white women, regulating abortion became an effective way to control racial demographics.

Today, these same nativist and racist concerns about demographics continue to fuel white supremacist anxieties about the “great replacement” – the notion that white people are being replaced by immigrants of color in majority-white Western countries. For white supremacists, abortion and reproductive rights play a central role in the solution to their anxieties about demographics and birth rates. The analysis found that:

• Racism was the most prevalent form of bigotry in the data, appearing in more than a fifth of posts discussing abortion.
• Unlike the other sample categories, posts discussing abortion that included racist language were more divided on their support for the medical procedure.
  • 42.8% of these posts opposed abortion.
  • Posts with racist language were three times more likely to support abortion than the other hateful samples.

Many users expressed their view that abortion served as an effective eugenics tool to help reduce the nonwhite population. One user explained, “The real answer to the abortion question depends on race.” More enthusiastically, another user endorsed, “Black abortion is a public service!”

Others expressed concern that abortion was a threat to the white race. One user expressed support for “abortion being banned in general in an almost white country, only allowed in cases of eugenic necessity.” This user went on to note, “Elective abortion of a healthy white child for contraceptive purposes is not acceptable.” Another lamented, “40% of abortions are by white women. White women alone have nearly single-handedly destroyed western civilization.”

Antisemitism

Antisemitism has always been a part of the anti-abortion movement. For centuries, antisemites have accused Jewish people of corrupting society, and abortion has long been framed as a tool in a “Jewish scheme” to subvert traditional values, destroy the family and reduce white birth rates in the West.

Additionally, anti-abortion rhetoric frequently incorporates the longstanding antisemitic trope of blood libel, which falsely alleges that Jewish people murder non-Jewish people – particularly Christian children – as part of ritual sacrifices. Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision, which in 2022 overturned the constitutional right to abortion, antisemitic activist E. Michael Jones claimed child sacrifice “has always been a part of the Jewish identity.”

Jones was specifically cited by two users in the data. Likewise, users in this sample argued the Dobbs decision “crippled jew’s [sic] source of innocent infant souls being sacrificed to molek [sic].” The analysis also found that:

• Nearly 12% of the posts discussing abortion contained antisemitic language.
• Most posts in this sample opposed abortion rights (67.7%).
• Dozens of posts blamed Jewish people for the widespread support for abortion access. One user explained, “planned parenthood is strategic for k***s bc [because] it’s where they trick goys to sacrifice their first born to moolach [sic].”
• Antisemitic posts were the most strongly linked among all other forms of hate. About half of the antisemitic posts also included racist (47.3%), misogynist (50.2%) or anti-LGBTQ+ (47.9%) language.

The prevalence of other forms of bigotry within the antisemitic subsample illustrates the conspiratorial nature of antisemitism that depicts Jewish people as the manipulative and powerful overlords who are secretly pulling the strings of various social movements. One user posited a Jewish conspiracy with a variety of perceived societal ills: “The Jews consolidated control after WW2, pushing desegregation, race mixing, adultery, divorce. Homosexuality, deindustrialization, 3^rd world immigration, abortion and so on.”

The interconnectivity of hate and extremism

The findings from the SPLC analysis reinforce the fact that various forms of hate and political violence do not operate neatly within easily distinguished silos. They are fluid and transcend the typologies we create to understand them.

History provides many examples.

Rudolph, though known as one of the most notorious anti-abortion extremists, also targeted a lesbian nightclub in Alabama. He vehemently opposed LGBTQ+ rights, which he believed to be “a direct assault upon the long-term health and integrity of civilization.”

Rudolph’s friends and family reported he had racist, sexist, homophobic and antisemitic views. He denied the Holocaust and referred to television as “the electronic Jew.” He also had close ties to several Christian Identity leaders, though reports of his adherence to the racist and antisemitic theology are mixed.

In a 2001 interview with the SPLC, his former sister in-law, Deborah Rudolph, explained why he targeted abortion clinics: “He believes that the white people are eventually going to be a minority instead of a majority. He believes that you should reproduce and be true to your race.”

Rudolph also harbored extreme antigovernment views, which one agent involved in the investigation believed was the root of his radicalization. In the letters where Rudolph claimed credit for the bombings as part of the Army of God, he outlined his intentional targeting of federal agents whom he blamed for legalized abortion. He also used the code “41993,” a reference to the date of the Waco siege – an event that helped energize the militia movement and motivate a wave of violence.

Just as Rudolph exhibited forms of extremism beyond his violent opposition to abortion rights, the anti-abortion movement itself is deeply intertwined with broader hard-right social and political objectives.

Likewise, individuals associated with the white supremacist movement have been responsible for a number of attacks on abortion providers and clinics. Tim Bishop of the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations once explained: “Lot’s [sic] of our people join [the anti-abortion movement] … It’s part of our Holy War for the pure Aryan race.”

In 2014, a family health clinic that also provided abortions was vandalized by the son of a crisis pregnancy center staffer. A few years earlier, neo-Nazi April Gaede had advocated on the Stormfront online forum for other racists to donate to that same crisis center, writing: “If you want to do something to help save White babies please donate to this group. I have personally met many of these people and they are some of the most devoted to saving the unborn that I have ever met. … Since our local population is over 95% White you are pretty much guaranteed to be helping to save White babies.”

Anti-abortion violence is also deeply connected to antisemitism. Of the five abortion providers who were the targets of sniper attacks in upstate New York and Canada between 1994 and 1998, four were Jewish. Prior to his murder, a wanted-style poster of one of the providers, Dr. Barnett Slepian, was placed in the bathroom of a Buffalo-area police station. The poster had the words “Jew” and “killer” on it. More recently, in November 2020, a man murdered a woman and injured her husband, telling the police he was “executing and exterminating the pro-choice Jewish Satan worshippers.”

Today, hate groups such as the Proud Boys engage in a similar two-pronged attack on reproductive justice and LGBTQ+ rights.

Opposition to bodily autonomy is no more a single issue than the desire to establish a white ethnostate. Efforts to restrict bodily autonomy serve to enforce a rigid social hierarchy that upholds the dominance of white Christian men and their right to subjugate everyone else. Our failure to recognize this has left us all vulnerable to the anti-abortion movement’s attacks on our democracy.

Picture at top: A Hatewatch analysis of the message board 4chan — known for its racist and misogynistic online trolling culture — finds a growing number of posts associated with anti-abortion extremism and other types of far-right ideas. (Credit: SPLC)