Censoring abortion is an act of fear

'Censorship is the child of fear, the father of ignorance, and the desperate weapon of fascists everywhere.'

S. Rogers

May 29, 2025

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☆This post is Part V in a series examining the anti-choice movement’s authoritarian efforts and actions toward censoring information about abortion and abortion services.

“Are Librarians Grooming Your Kids?” — That’s the title of a recent episode of the The Lila Rose Show. Lila Rose is a Catholic anti-reproductive-rights extremist who founded Live Action, a radical organization that opposes sexual and reproductive health and (human) rights (SRHR). “Rose’s desire to weaponize her status as a young white woman to shroud her misinformation and vitriol has concerningly garnered her and Live Action large followings.”1

“Did you know that there is pornographic material in our public library system and our school library systems, not just for adults, but for children?” Rose asks at the start of the episode. “I have seen this myself.”

Staring intently into the camera from behind a large microphone, Rose tells her frightened listeners, “You’re going to see what unelected bureaucrats who are ideologically-driven -- the ‘librarians’ -- are putting into our library system.” As she says the word librarians, Rose holds up her hand, using two fingers to create a scare quote gesture.

Her guest on the show is Karen England, a conservative activist who teaches neo-Puritan reactionaries how to get books banned from libraries.2 Rose urges her viewers to visit two of England’s websites. On those websites, says Rose, “are catalogues of the sexually explicit and deviant materials you can find in your public libraries, the libraries near you…”

For nearly an hour, Rose and England flip through various books for youth of differing age ranges, pointing out all of the things with which they personally disagree.

For example, in a section about childbirth in the gender-inclusive Every Body Book, there is an illustration of a person giving birth. That person has short hair. —Because that illustrated person has short hair, Lila Rose says that the illustration depicts a trans man, which her viewers are to understand as being inherently bad.

[Of note, “individuals who are intolerant of ambiguity are significantly more often given to dichotomous conceptions,” such as short hair signifying man, long hair signifying woman, and a cleavage to binary gender conformity.3 “They are less permissive and lean toward rigid categorization of cultural norms. Power–weakness, cleanliness–dirtiness, morality-immorality, conformance–divergence are the dimensions through which [other] people are seen...”4]

The episode centers around Rose and England’s shared belief in a supposed tax-funded, librarian-led conspiracy in which parents and teachets use library books to “indoctrinate” children into thinking about and seeing the world differently than Rose and England do. In this context, a deep, nagging, suspicious fear is illicited by innocuous activities, such as the time-honored practice of stocking public library shelves with a large variety of books that, by default, not everyone will necessarily like, agree with, or want to read.

It is out of this deep, nagging, suspicious fear that Rose urges her audience to go to their local public libraries and photograph every book that her reactionary viewers disagree with so that those books can be banned.

This brings us to the fourth historical tenet of censorship: Censorship is ultimately driven by fear.

As we have previously discussed, scholars have identified historical tenets of censorship. Four of these historical tenets (listed below) prove especially elucidative of current anti-choice actions and efforts, and provide insight into the anti-choice movement, its activists, and its adherents. Today, in this context, we'll examine the fourth historical tenet of censorship.

Tenets of Historical Censorship

Censorship Is Raw Hegemonic Power
Censorship Is an Attempt to Prevent Social Change
Censorship Targets Access to Impactful Materials
Censorship Is Ultimately Driven by Fear

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Censorship is the child of fear

the father of ignorance

and the desperate weapon of fascists everywhere.

(Laurie Halse Anderson5)

Tenet IV: Censorship Is Ultimately Driven by Fear

As you will recall, censorship is an attempt to prevent (and even reverse) social change. Censorship campaigns “occur in response to social changes that alarm a privileged population, with the goal of dictating access to information for the entire community according to the personal beliefs of the privileged group. The urge to censor is rooted in the use of raw power to preserve the currently privileged.”6 In other words, its aim is to “uphold the rights and values of some and deny the rights and values of others”7 in an attempt to prevent social change and to arrest efforts to extend full rights and equality to those whom the hegemon disfavors. The fourth historical tenet of censorship is related to the attempt to prevent social change.

“Perhaps the most important driver of censorship is that it is an act of fear perpetuated by the fear that society is changing, the fear that these changes will erode existing privilege and challenge [hegemonic] beliefs, the fear of people with different cultures and experiences, the fear of having to live in a different world” (emphasis added).8

Every example of historical and contemporary censorship movements that have been noted and discussed in this series on anti-choice censorship were and are “fueled by a desire to suppress social change, which means that censorship in most cases is not a necessarily [a] reasoning-based process but something much more primal”— fear.9 Consider the contemporary censorship movement’s rhetorical claims that librarians are “an arm of Satan,” “pedophiles,” and “groomers” who are “out to pollute the minds of the nation’s youth.”10 This rhetoric is indicative of “the level of fear underlying current censorship movement.”11 As librarian Everett T. Moore observed in 1968, “Those who fear social change already fear the library.”12

Censorship is a power struggle “driven by a fear of losing control – control over narratives, control over information, control over the very way people think” (emphasis added).13 “When the status quo is threatened, the existing power always attempts to prevent the spread of opinions and attitudes hostile to those it holds sacred,”14 and to close access points to empowerment to those it wishes to bring to heel.1516 As such, censorship is “deployed to maintain existing power structures, to stifle dissent, and to enforce ideological conformity. By limiting access to diverse perspectives and challenging narratives,” as well as to empowering information and resources, “censorship seeks to create a more compliant and less questioning populace.”17 “It is about stifling a [] population completely. It is raw power and based upon fear” (emphasis added).18

When the anti-choice movement succeeded in overturning Roe v. Wade, they hoped to create a new status quo, starting with Republican states. They call this new status quo the “culture of life.” But changing the status quo also created other social changes, especially a greater public awareness of the ability to obtain abortion medications through the mail. Therefore, under the new hegemony of the “culture of life,” opponents of sexual and reproductive health and (human) rights (SRHR) fear existing avenues to abortion medications as threats to their own existing power and to “maintaining[] the perceived legitimacy and stability of [their] overarching social system.”19

In Texas, for example, anti-choicers have responded to responded to the increased awareness of the ability to obtain abortion medications through the mail by introducing a bill to cut off all access to online abortion information and resources. (Thankfully, that bill appears to have stalled, for now.) Regarding that bill’s blatantly dictatorial mechanisms of censorship, John Seago, the head of Texas Right to Life, said that the bill was a direct response to social change, which he pejoratively called “promoting[] illegal activity.”20

Underscoring the fear driving effort to pass the bill, Republican state Rep. Mitch Little said, “We are in a war right now, and you need to understand we are running out of time.”21 When the bill hadn’t moved out of a house committee quickly enough, 43 Texas state representatives signed a letter to their colleagues urging action.22 “Texas is in crisis,” the letter said, because Texas anti-choicers’ new “culture of life” is, according to the lawmakers, “subverted daily by bad actors who flood [the] state with dangerous and deadly abortion pills.”23

This rhetoric of “crisis” and “war” is indicative of the level of fear driving current censorship movement— the fear of the freedom to read, write, and think about abortion; the fear of the freedom to imagine a different future and take hold of it; and the fear of the freedom to challenge the status quo.

Because they are afraid, opponents of sexual and reproductive health and (human) rights (SRHR) are turning to censorship, “a brutal and blunt method of attempting to control access, literacy, and discourse, and by extension all other social interactions.”24 No matter how the hegemons may frame it, censorship will always be “the child of fear, the father of ignorance, and the desperate weapon of fascists everywhere.”25

rePro-Truth

Censoring abortion is an act of fear

'Censorship is the child of fear, the father of ignorance, and the desperate weapon of fascists everywhere.'

☆This post is Part V in a series examining the anti-choice movement’s authoritarian efforts and actions toward censoring information about abortion and abortion services.

Tenet IV: Censorship Is Ultimately Driven by Fear

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