From “Fund Abortion” to “Fund Abo’bo”: How MMORPGs Reproduce Abortion Stigma through Profanity Prohibitions

• In Event: Sociology of Sex and Gender Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 11. Media, Digital Platforms, and Gendered Politics

Abstract

This paper examines how commercial game governance regimes participate in the production of abortion stigma by classifying the word “abortion” as profanity within a major massively multiplayer online role‑playing game (MMORPG), Final Fantasy XIV (FFXIV). Drawing on my experience of having a character named “Fund Abortion” forcibly renamed by game masters (GMs) on the grounds that the name violated profanity rules, I treat this incident not as a one‑off moderation error but as a window into how platforms regulate reproductive politics as a matter of “language” rather than of speech, health, or rights. I argue that when “abortion” is folded into the same regulatory category as slurs and obscenities, game companies help to naturalize the idea that abortion is inherently offensive, shameful, or unfit for public mention. In doing so, they reproduce abortion stigma under the apolitical banner of community standards and “profanity filters,” even as they disavow any explicit position on reproductive rights.

Author

• Aalap Ooha Bommaraju, University of Cincinnati