‘My Body, My Choice’: How Vaccine Foes Co-Opted the Abortion Rallying Cry

In the shadow of L.A.’s art deco City Hall, musicians jammed onstage, kids got their faces painted, and families picnicked on lawn chairs. Amid the festivity, people waved flags, sported T-shirts, and sold buttons — all emblazoned with a familiar slogan: “My Body, My Choice.” However, this wasn’t an abortion rights rally. It was the “Defeat the Mandates Rally,” a jubilant gathering of anti-vaccine activists in April to protest the few remaining covid-19 guidelines, such as mask mandates on mass transit and vaccination requirements for health care workers.

A Stunning Annexation of Political Messaging

Similar scenes have played out across the country during the pandemic. Armed with the language of the abortion rights movement, anti-vaccine forces have converged with right-leaning causes to protest covid precautions. Vaccine opponents have appropriated “My Body, My Choice,” a slogan that has been inextricably linked to reproductive rights for nearly half a century, to fight mask and vaccine mandates across the country. Now that anti-vaccination groups have laid claim to the phrase, abortion rights groups are distancing themselves from it — marking a stunning annexation of political messaging.

The Impact on Public Health and Choice

“It’s a really savvy co-option of reproductive rights and the movement’s framing of the issue,” said Lisa Ikemoto, a law professor at the University of California-Davis Feminist Research Institute. She explained that “it strengthens the meaning of choice in the anti-vaccine space and detracts from the meaning of that word in the reproductive rights space.” Furthermore, framing the decision to vaccinate as a singularly personal one also obscures its public health consequences, because vaccines are used to protect not just one person but a community of people by stopping the spread of a disease to those who can’t protect themselves.

Celinda Lake, a Democratic strategist and pollster based in Washington, D.C., said “My Body, My Choice” is no longer polling well with Democrats because they associate it with anti-vaccination sentiment. “What’s really unique about this is that you don’t usually see one side’s base adopting the message of the other side’s base — and succeeding,” she said.

Evolving Strategies in the Reproductive Rights Movement

As the anti-vaccine contingent has notched successes, the abortion rights movement has taken hit after hit, culminating in the June 24 Supreme Court decision that ended the federal constitutional right to abortion. Jodi Hicks, president of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, acknowledged that the appropriation of abortion rights terminology has worked against the reproductive rights movement. She said the movement was already gravitating away from the phrase and is now focusing more heavily on access to health care, using catchphrases such as:

• “Bans Off Our Bodies”
• “Say Abortion”

Vaccination hasn’t always been this political, as opposition to vaccines grew in the 1980s among parents concerned about school vaccine requirements. Below is a summary of the data regarding the current political and legal landscape mentioned in the report: