The Abortion Narratives in Indonesian Media: Portrayal The Legalization and Accessibility of Safe Abortion Services on Fulfilling SDGs

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-368-9_23How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Media; Abortion; Narratives; SDGs; Indonesia

Abstract

Abortion is a concept that is still highly debated in every layer of Indonesian society. There is limited safe service available and accessible by the public in Indonesia which has become a challenge to achieve SDG 3’s goal to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all. Media has a role in spreading knowledge and shaping narratives on public discourses, including the topic of abortion. In this paper, we examine how narratives in Indonesian media portray the concept of abortion and accessibility on getting proper health care services for abortion in Indonesia. Using the semiotic triangle by Charles S. Pierce in analyzing news articles and other contents, we found certain symbolisms and references used to describe the concept of abortion. We also explore more on this by dissecting symbolisms on foreign-owned media as a comparison to identify the differences between them. Local Indonesian media portrays abortion as heretical with the use of the word “evil”, “cruel”, and other malevolent words to describe the process of abortion. Foreign-owned media tends to have a more neutral characterization of abortion cases. Indonesia media shows a tendency to support anti-abortion policies as desired by the majority of Indonesian society. It can be concluded that the Indonesian media depicts abortion as a despicable act and the possibility of developing safe abortion services in Indonesia is still small.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Andriko Sandria
AU  - Berlian Hanifatus Azzahrah
AU  - Maureen Airliana Rachmad
AU  - Mohammad Aldio Hendico
AU  - Regina Dinda Hapsari
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/03/04
TI  - The Abortion Narratives in Indonesian Media: Portrayal The Legalization and Accessibility of Safe Abortion Services on Fulfilling SDGs
BT  - Proceedings of The 8th International Conference on Social and Political Sciences (ICoSaPS 2024)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 240
EP  - 246
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-368-9_23
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-368-9_23
ID  - Sandria2025
ER  -