Social Miscarriage: Experiencing Pregnancy Loss on Social Media

Open Access
- Author:
- Bert, Kayla
- Area of Honors:
- Women's Studies
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Theresa K Vescio, Thesis Supervisor
Jennifer Ann Wagner Lawlor, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- pregnancy
miscarriage
pregnancy loss
abortion
reproductive healthcare
reproductive justice
choice
fetal imagery
fetal personhood
social media
Instagram
attitudes
feminism
healthcare
anthropomorphism - Abstract:
- It is unclear how fetal images posted to the #IHadAMiscarriage on Instagram impacts our understanding of fetal personhood and whether understandings of fetal personhood have implications for abortion attitudes, and ideas about reproductive healthcare. The objective of this study is to explore whether social media posts about miscarriage stimulate anti-abortion attitudes when posts are accompanied by fetal images. Specifically, I predict that the use of fetal imagery paired with social media posts about coping with miscarriages and stillbirths (e.g., #IHadAMiscarriage) will increase perceptions of fetal personhood and, in turn, anti-abortion attitudes. In this study I examine two hypotheses. Firstly, I predict that social media posts about miscarriage that are associated with pictures of a fetus (versus picture of a mother or no picture) cause increases in perceived fetal personhood. Secondly, I predict that because images of fetuses lead to increased perceptions of fetal personhood, and because fetal personhood is related to negative attitudes toward abortion (Keane, 2009; Petchesky, 1987; Hartouni, 1992), then the use of fetal images with miscarriage posts should lead to more negative attitudes toward abortion.