It's kind of creepy how those images never show the woman's face, too.

It's curious that at least two of your examples - The Telegraph and The New Republic stories - have decidedly pro-choice leanings. One would think that using obviously pregnant bellies to illustrate abortion would be an anti-choice tactic; culturally, we're all socialized to view pregnant women's bodies as in need of nurturing and protection. A pregnant woman who's very far along is supposed to inspire wholesome thoughts about family, parenthood, etc. (This is in itself problematic, of course, and pregnant women have agency and are more than just fetus factories, but I digress.) So attaching such an image to a story about abortion should, in theory, be a tactic to demonize abortion and make us think poorly about the women who choose to abort.

But pro-choice articles are picking the same things to illustrate their stories, and out of curiosity, I just did a quick search for "abortion" on a stock photo site. Almost every image was one of fetuses, anti-abortion activists, or bloody medical tools. A pregnant woman would be a much more favourable way to illustrate a pro-choice story than any of the other options, so the news agencies aren't really to blame for this disconnect between reality and image; they have no other source material to work with.

Thanks for the link, Lisa! I am a follower & a fan of Sociological Images, so this made my day.

Bidoof & Ceiling Cat, I share your creeped-out-ness over the missing head of many of the women featured in the photography that accompanies news stories on abortion. Hence, #headless as the number-one most frequently used tag for our posts on The Inevitable Preggobelly.

But the even more disturbing thing (I think) is that such imagery isn't limited to "these people" of any one political stripe. Three of the four images from our blog that Lisa selected were from progressive news outlets and/or explicitly advocated a pro-choice stance, and the fourth was mainstream, so-called "objective" media. It's not only hard-core right-wingers who envision a 39-week belly when someone says the word "abortion." It's become part of the general public consciousness--and that is deeply unnerving to me.

Another thing: why are all of these bodies super-idealized? No belly stripe, no stretch marks, no pubic hair (even on the images that dive well beyond the baby bump)? We're going to body shame pregnant women at the same time we mislead about abortion? Cool ...

I also find it noteworthy that three of the four women above have their hands over their bellies (and babies) in a protective gesture.

I have to dig through stock photography in an attempt to attach photos to articles and I want to do it as quickly as possible. If I were to write an article about abortion and included a women whose belly didn't look pregnant, an editor would undoubtedly tell me to change the photo to one that is clear. I doubt that there are many stock photos that would actually be appropriate for displaying first trimester pregnancy/abortion, except perhaps a women with a pregnancy test and an anxious look but that still doesn't fit.

I am not suggesting that stock photography limits should give editors/writers/publishers a pass but we should not dismiss them as one of the reasons for misrepresentation and the constant barrage of attractive, young, white people in so many magazine/online representations.

Size does not matter. Whether 2.5 inches or fully developed a baby is human as much as you and me. Choosing abortion is choosing murder. Just because today's society tolerates the murder of an unborn child does not make that right. Romans used to regard murder of adults or children as acceptable or even entertaining - would we do that today? Pregnancy, in most cases, is the result of a conscious choice to have sex - and even when it is not, is not the fault of the fetus. In no other case in today's society do we tolerate that someone flee the consequences of their actions in such a destructive way.
Talking about women as baby incubators is obscene. Just because you want human rights to life respected does not mean you consider anyone an object.
Embrace the consequences of your actions. And, if you are a victim, do not aggravate the crime that was done to you by passing it on. We all have to live with the consequences of our or other people's choices. In some cases it may not be fair but it is what it is. No one chooses to be hit by an earthquake. It is how we react that we choose. We can throw in the towel saying it is not fair, or face what is and rebuild, turning it into an opportunity. Abortion is throwing in the towel - and killing a real human in the process. Have no illusions, and stop rationalizing.

It occurs to me that if science was as interested in the further development of prenatal care - artificial incubators for humans, for instance, or a process of safely transferring a fetus from one womb to another - as it is in finding the perfect breast augmentation surgery or facelift, a lot of the external and internal debate around an either/or choice (either abort or bring the fetus to full-term) would cease. I think a lot of women would gladly take a third option if it meant not having to abort the fetus in order to stop the pregnancy.

"According to WebMD, a 12-week old fetus is 2.5 inches long and the typical woman will have gained three to five pounds."

Not the women in MY family...we all were puking our guts out and LOST weight for almost 12 weeks!!!

I think they use full bellies because it represents pregnancy and abortion is related to that. I am not creative enough to imagine a way to represent abortion.

Showing a woman that doesn't look pregnant could be ambiguous as people might not think that she is pregnant. I think that's because for most people the mental image relating to pregnancy is of a full belly.

Showing a fetus I think could be confusing as well. People might not even be able to tell that what they are seeing is a fetus, depending on the stage of development. Showing a fetus that resembles a human could be misleading or could be harmful to people writing pro-choice articles. I also think that the image of a fetus inside a mother's woumb does not really bring abortion to mind, it just brings fetus to mind, at least for me.

Showing anything related to the act of abortion would be inapropriate to any major media outlet. A dead fetus or the surgery performed would be too gruesome.

What else could be done? I guess not use any image at all or use some graph that discusses the subject, but that's different than using an image. The image is used as a hook, to get people's attention or illustrate the story. The image cannot be confusing and must be able to stand on its own. I think it is hard to do something like that for abortion.

What I think it happens is that people writing about have pregnancy in mind as one of the themes relating to abortion. They just get an image that better represents pregnancy without thinking if it is appropriated or not, they just want to illustrate the story.

I don't think it has to do with a general anti-abortion mindset. I think this might happen for practical reasons. Also, as mentioned before, it probably has to use with a limited variety in stock photos relating to the subject.

Oh, and to add to what Molly said about the pregnant women being headless, I think that another reason for that is to just illustrate the theme directly. Like Molly said, putting a face on a person might lead the reader to think that the person is associated with the story (which could cause problems later). By not putting a face, aside from avoiding this problem, you also focus the image strictly on pregnancy. It isn't that a headless image is saying a woman is just a baby incubator, the headless image is just limiting the subject specifically to pregnancy.

>>> It isn’t that a headless image is saying a woman is just a baby incubator, the headless image is just limiting the subject specifically to pregnancy.

Exactly. Any other conclusion is just histrionics.

Wow, this is so obvious in retrospect but I never noticed it before and it's TERRIBLE. It's probably completely unintentional, too. Someone quickly skims the article and goes 'Oh, Abortion, what picture can I put with this, lets type 'pregnant' into the stock footage search engine, ding, done.' And so someone just doing their job on mental autopilot accidentally creates an image that will resonate with anyone who already has negative feelings about abortion and subconsciously reinforce them.

I'm glad that the original post brought up the issue of fetus imagery.
See: http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2009/04/30/visualizing-the-fetus/
The images all seem to be of healthy fetuses that were aborted.
But how about showing images of fetuses suffering from defective development that were aborted? If abortion were limited by law to only be allowed in cases where the mother's life was threatened by the pregnancy, would she not be then be forced to carry to term fetuses afflicted with visually obvious developmental (but not life threatening) problems?

Honestly, that last one could easily be late first trimester. But yeah, the others are clearly very late in pregnancy when abortions are almost never performed - a couple are clearly past the point of viability, even.

What if abortion really is murder and you're wrong? Then what?

When men have to crap a grapefruit out their arse, THEN will they have any opinion, a woman's body a woman's choice, no one should endure months of pregnancy for an unwanted kid.