To explore pediatric nurses’ challenges and effective coping strategies in caring for dying children.A descriptive qualitative study was adopted. Data were collected using a semi-structured interview with ten nurses from the pediatric, pediatric emergency, and neonatology departments.Three themes were generated: stressors, consequences, and coping strategies. Ten sub-themes were generalized: negative emotions; helplessness; questioning rescue behavior; fear of communication; lack of workforce for night rescue; compassion fatigue; burnout; changes in life attitudes; self-regulation; leadership approval and no accountability.Through qualitative research, nurses’ challenges and effective coping strategies in caring for dying children were found, which provides information for nurses’ career development and related policy formulation in China.While there are many articles in China on hospice care, there is little research on the nurses’ experience of caring for dying children. Many studies have mentioned the adverse consequences of caring for dying children in foreign countries, leading to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, domestic discussion of such problems is rare, and no corresponding coping strategies exist. This study explores pediatric nurses’ challenges and effective coping strategies in caring for dying children.The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12912-023-01274-0. The experience of caring for dying children causes stress on nurses, which can affect their work and life, and even lead to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). According to the studies that have already been published, this stress is mainly the feeling of helplessness and depression in facing the death of children, communication challenges, insufficient staff, and heavy workload. In coping strategies, there are two main ways of problem-centered coping and emotion-centered coping. Emotional support can reduce the incidence rate of post-traumatic stress disorder.This study finds that the stressor in caring for dying children differs in China. The first is negative emotions, such as sadness, dismay, and anxiety, especially in caring for children with long nursing hours. The other is questioning the rescue behavior, making nurses constantly recall the rescue process. Leadership approval and no accountability are also essential in coping strategies, except self-regulation of coping strategies in China.The study guides nurses in China, especially nursing managers, to pay attention to the feelings of nurses who care for dying children. Moreover, it also provides some information for the development of nurses and the formulation of relevant policies.Discussion of death is taboo in some countries. Parents control their emotions as much as possible when they learn their child could die . There aFirst of all, with society’s development, people pay more and more attention to children’s health. Pediatric nurses face tremendous pressure, such as the rapid change in children’s conditions and the highly demanding nursing skills, especially at the critical moment of death . In a quSecondly is the impact of this care experience on nurses. In 20 studies, it was mainly reflected in three aspects: first is job burnout , 16. In In coping strategies, there are two main ways of problem-centered coping and emotion-centered coping . HoweverThere are many articles on professional stress and coping strategies of nurses in China, such as mindfulness decompression therapy , employeThere were five reasons for choosing a qualitative descriptive(QD)for this study. First, researchers generally draw from a naturalistic perspective and examine a phenomenon in its natural state . Second,This study adopts the trustworthiness criteria of Lincoln and Guba (1994) , 33. In In this study, the participants were recruited by a poster in August 2021. In the recruitment poster, the author clarified the purpose of the study, the research method, and the inclusion and withdrawal criteria of the subjects. For two weeks, this poster was posted on the bulletin board of a Grade 3 A hospital in Hanzhong City, Shaanxi Province, and published in the WeChat group of nurses. Nurses who want to participate in the registration by email will receive an information questionnaire.Inclusion criteria :(1) pediatric nurses have been working in hospitals for more than one year ;(2) being able to express their views clearly in Mandarin ;(3) obtaining informed consent ;(4) having the experience of caring for dying children in the past five years. The exclusion criteria were :(1) nurses who withdrew during the interview ;(2) nurses who did not want to mention their experience caring for dying children.A total of 30 email replies were received. According to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, ten people from different departments were finally selected as the sample according to the study purpose. All of whom were female, aged 25–49, with an average age of 35.5, including six nurses with a college degree and four nurses with undergraduate degrees, all of whom were married and one divorced.In this study, the report will replace each participant with a code, and the interviewee’s identity, residence, and contact information will not be disclosed to others. Video Sound content is also used only in this study. After the study, the audio data will be destroyed. The hospital ethics committee approved this study.Interested nursing staff requested to return to the questionnaire in October 2021, where the investigator contacted them, coded and negotiated the interview time, and signed informed consent before the interview. In November 2021, investigators used semi-structured interviews to collect data. The questions involved in the interviews are detailed in Appendix 4. The interview site is in a hospital’s family home dormitory for 20–40 min. The investigator will record the participant’s views and record them with the other party’s consent. The results will be returned to each participant in December to verify the interview details, thus ensuring the accuracy and credibility of the analysis. Before this interview, investigators were trained in interview and communication skills, including effective listening and giving positive feedback, establishing good relationships with interviewees, maintaining eye contact, not interrupting interviewees, not judging their views, etc. Besides, Kavanaugh and Ayers (1998) pointed out that in the course of the study, especially for sensitive topics, it is essential to assess participants’ feelings. Researchers must try to minimize the discomfort of participants. It is unethical if researchers cannot deal with pain . TherefoContent analysis by Krippendorff (2018) was used to analyze the experience of Chinese nurses caring for dying children. NVivo 12 computer software is often used in qualitative research and can help with fast coding, deep exploration, and strict management:Raw data is entered verbatim into the computer and then uploaded to the NVIVO.The content is verbatim-coded. A concept label is then created for the nodes in the NVIVO, and the words under the concept are dragged to the nodes they support.The content and topic are classified by application software.This survey extracted three topics: stress sources, consequences, and coping strategies. See Appendix 5 for details.Participants described the stress involved in dying children’s care, including negative emotions, feelings of helplessness, questioning their rescue behavior, communicating fear, and lack of workforce at night.Nine participants(NI-N9)mentioned that stress originated from adverse emotional reactions, including anxiety, sadness, frustration, crying, sadness, vomiting, hate, disgust, disappointment, guilt, complaints, dissatisfaction, discomfort, and fear. Some of the negative emotions were repeatedly mentioned by the respondents, such as the proportion of depression reached 66.67%, and crying and fear was 33.33%. One common manifestation of respondents with such negative emotions is that the more treatments are added to the child, the heavier the adverse emotional reaction will be.Most participants mentioned their negative emotions, such as sadness, dismay, and anxiety, especially in caring for children with long nursing hours.“Seeing my nursing child lying there with many tubes in her body, I felt so sad that I could not control my tears and wanted to cry,“ N1 said.N6 said, “I even wanted him to die peacefully. Nevertheless, I felt very guilty because of this kind of thought… How can I have this thought? Even if I can not save him, I should try my best .“N7 said, “I felt anxious because I do not want to do anything to increase his pain. I wanted to let him quietly walk the final course of life, but my responsibilities forced me to continue injecting medicine and intubation.“Five respondents mentioned feelings of helplessness. Especially when the child eventually died, and the experience affected the respondents’ lives.“I was afraid of hurting her, watching her look at me, watching her react get worse. I felt so bad I could not do anything.“ by N2.N4 said, “I have done everything I can, but the kids are getting worse and worse. I felt useless.“Four respondents have questioned their rescue efforts. Two of them lacked confidence in their nursing skills, and two had higher requirements for their abilities and felt they could do better.“Especially when the child’s condition suddenly changed, we rescued him together, but after the rescue, I would constantly recall the whole rescue process, was I wrong, where I operated slowly, what did I ignore?Three respondents mentioned a lack of communication skills and a fear of communicating with their families. Such respondents were questioned by their family members, and the family member was not present when the child’s condition deteriorated.N8 said, “I dared not communicate with the child’s family. I fear telling them information that may differ from what the doctor said. I fear family emotional control, which would produce extreme behavior.““I wanted the mother to stop crying, but I did not know how to communicate with her because if I were her, I might cry worse than she did,“ N9 said.Four respondents talked about a labor shortage at night, especially at night, without the support of mobile nurses.N4 said, “I was most afraid of the night rescue because of the staff shortage. Other children need care. It was easy to make nursing errors.““If I had a child who would get worse at any time during the night shift, I would have been restless all night. I remembered one time, one child was being rescued, the other child was getting worse, and the other children’s families were calling me, and I cried as I rescued, wishing I had three heads and six arms.“ by N7.This experience’s consequences include compassion fatigue, burnout, and changes in life attitudes.Four respondents talked about the consequences of stress as compassion fatigue. Their common point is that they had experienced countless rescue efforts for the child, with N4 working less than ten years and the other three years working more than 20 years.N4 said, “I felt that care for dying children is part of the job, without any feeling, just routine care and rescue.““I have saved too many children, no feeling. This is the life.“ by N6.“When I was at work, I thought these kids were pathetic, but now, I did not feel that way at all,“ said N10.Five respondents talked about the consequences of stress, especially when they think of their children.N4 said, “I have had many thoughts about leaving, especially every time I save a child, and I have had enough of this experience, which has seriously affected my mood. I did not want to be a pediatric nurse anymore. I have applied for a change with the leader but have not been approved.““If I had found a better job, I would have resigned, the pressure on the first-line pediatric nurse was too great, and I did not even want to go to work,“ said N7.Six respondents said that the consequences of stress were a change in life attitude and that the changes were all positive, making them more passionate about life and caring for their families.N5 said, “This experience has greatly changed me, and life is fragile. I should love life more. I tried to care about my children and spent more time with my parents because of empathy. The parents of those children rushed to the hospital from their workplace and saw their children dying. The collapse of the look and the atonement deeply hurt me.““I have always felt I have much time to accompany my children, but accidents always happen. I did not care about that until I lost my child. So I could feel the feelings of the family very much. I went to study psychology and took a counselor, and I hope I can give the same experience as my parents a little help.“Most nurses in this survey mentioned self-regulation, and individual nurses thought that if the head nurse or department director affirmed their behavior initially, not holding them accountable would significantly help them cope with stress.Ten respondents talked about self-mediation, releasing their pressure by watching music, watching TV, reading books, and slowly forgetting the experience of rescuing the children. In addition, respondents will not talk about their families, mainly afraid of burdening their families and affecting their emotions. Only two mentioned finding friends or colleagues to communicate with.“I was under much stress and wanted to be quiet after the rescue,“ said N2.“It took a long time to adjust your negative emotions slowly each time.“ by N8.N9 said, “It was all self-regulating, finding a quiet corner, not wanting to ask for help from others, who did not necessarily understand because they have not experienced it.“Eight respondents(N1-N8) wanted support from a doctor or leader, especially support and encouragement from the head nurse. A hug and a word of approval can maximize the pressure.N7 said, “Once I cried after rescuing the child, and I was agitated because the child was about the age of my daughter, and the head nurse came and hugged me, and she whispered to me,“ You were doing well.““What I fear most was leadership accountability, and I did not think I would be under pressure if the department director made it clear that the child’s death was not my responsibility.“ by N3.Although this paper’s sample size is saturated, Chinese nurses do not talk much about the feelings of children dying, especially young nurses. The nurses who have worked for over ten years provide much information. This is different from other contentious. For example, in Ireland, nurses were invited to attend the children’s funerals . HoweverWith the promotion of magnetic nursing in more and more hospitals in China, nurses’ physical and mental health is significant for developing high-quality holistic care . This stThere were ten subthemes in this study. Two aspects of stressors are different from foreign studies. One is that nurses question their rescue behavior. Because the investigation took place in a third-class hospital in Hanzhong City, there was no situation of foreigners seeking medical treatment, so there was no language barrier. Nurses questioning their rescue behavior mainly occurred when a child died unexpectedly. Because it happened so suddenly, the nurse repeatedly recalled what was wrong or missed in the whole process and whether a specific behavior caused the child’s condition to change. Studies have found that once a child dies suddenly, regardless of whether there is direct responsibility for the nurse, it will pressure the nurse psychologically. The other is various forms of negative emotions, especially the more treatment added to the child, the heavier the adverse emotional reaction of the nurse will be.Regarding stress consequences, job burnout, and compassion fatigue are consistent with foreign research results –38, but Different manifestations of coping strategies that most nurses in China tend to relieve stress through self-regulation, while in foreign studies, emotional support between teams is the mainstay . ForeignThis study not only puts forward some guidance for nursing managers to focus on the feelings of nurses who care for dying children but also provides information for the career development of nurses and the formulation of relevant policies. Nursing managers should pay close attention to nurses caring for dying children, especially the first nurse, to give enough emotional support, let them the negative emotions, and coping strategies and related knowledge training, application of mature management tools to press the maximum to relieve their pressure.Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.Supplementary Material 1Supplementary Material 2


The acquisition of a second language requires the construction or reconstruction of linguistic knowledge about the new language system. Learners of a second language have to acquire the linguistic structures of the second language by constructing or reassessing their own knowledge in the light of the new one. Some of these new linguistic structures may be more or less complex to process and/or difficult to acquire. In this review, we focus on an example of linguistic complexity in French, namely, the subjunctive. Through a discussion of some selected studies on the second language acquisition of the French subjunctive, our purpose is to argue that these findings, considered from a psycholinguistic perspective, could be fruitful for further research employing neuroscience techniques, such as electroencephalography or neuroimaging in order to better understand the neurocognitive processing of this complex structure both in French native speakers and in learners of French. Hence, we aim to contribute to exploring the question of linguistic transfer in the field of second language acquisition, the typological distance/relation between L1–L2, the syntactic acquisition of complex structures in adult second language learners, and the potential contributions of electroencephalography and functional magnetic resonance imaging to the processing of the subjunctive, selected as an example of linguistic complexity that has not yet received much attention. While certain linguistic structures may prove difficult for native speakers to acquire, their characteristics  may make them even more difficult for second language learners (henceforth L2). The processing of these structures is assumed to have a higher cognitive cost. When acquiring an L2, learners have to construct and reconstruct their linguistic knowledge. That is, some of the morphological categories of an L2 may be difficult for learners to acquire because they involve retrieving in memory the grammatical rules that govern the use of the morphological categories. This is the case, for example, for the acquisition of the French partitive articles, both in positive and in negative sentences, by Italian learners of French L2, see .imparfait (Il fermait la porte … ‘He was closing the door …’) and the passé composé (Il a fermé la porte … ‘He closed the door …’), which are difficult and complex for Chinese learners of French L2 to acquire and process  toi-même ‘I prefer that you see for yourself’ (indicative) vs. voiesJe veux que tu  [vwa] toi-même ‘I want you to see for yourself’ (subjunctive). In speech, only the verbs of the third group, ending in -re/oir, are phonetically marked and can therefore be differentiated from the indicative (reçoisJe préfère que tu le  [ʁəswa] ‘I prefer you to receive him’ indicative vs. reçoiveJe veux que tu le  [ʁəswav] ‘I want you to receive him’ subjunctive. Lachet (2013),  > qu’ il tienne ‘that he keeps’ (subjunctive) vs. [tjil tient ‘he keeps’ (indicative) but also [tjɛn] > ils tiennent ‘they keep’ (indicative); (3) subjunctive specifically marked: [fas] > qu’il fasse (subjunctive) vs. [fɛ] (il) fait (indicative). Third, it is assumed that the subjunctive is the mood of subordination: in embedded clauses, the subjunctive appears following a triggering element  present in the main clause [afin que ‘so that’, pour que ‘so that, à moins que ‘unless’, bien que ‘although’, malgré que ‘despite the fact that’, de crainte que ‘for fear that/lest’, de manière que ‘in such a way that’, de façon (à ce) que ‘so that’, etc. In contemporary French, the most frequently used subjunctive tenses are the present and the past, while the imparfait  and plus-que-parfait  are employed only in the literature and in formal registers (administrative documents). Furthermore, the subjunctive can also be used in main clauses when they are in the imperative, the injunctive, the exclamatory, or optative forms  depending on the language’s typology . In this section, we will discuss the French subjunctive. If we assume with Bulté and Housen ( (p. 24)) clauses . More sp (2013),  proposedn clause ,74. Accon clause , the sube forms , abîmer (‘to damage’). Taken together, these production data in French children converge in suggesting that the subjunctive is acquired and produced by French natives in the early stages of language development. It has been shown that the stage of emergence is around two years old, and the age of full acquisition and adult-like use is around the age of 7. These findings lead to two major conclusions. First, they show that the subjunctive is not as difficult as it is thought to be since it does not present a problem of acquisition for French natives. Second, despite statements by some linguists about the death of the subjunctive in spoken French  acquire and have a good command of the subjunctive early in their developmental stages of L1 acquisition. They have an adult-like command of the subjunctive at the age of 4 or 7, depending on their L1, but when pragmatic knowledge is needed , cognitive maturation is required. Nevertheless, one might claim that children may produce subjunctive forms as an unanalyzed formulaic sequence. To resolve this question, Clahsen and Felser  proposedIn conclusion, it does not seem plausible to consider that the forms of the subjunctive produced by children are unanalyzed structures. This view is in accordance with the principle of the elicited imitation task, which consists of repeating, as accurately as possible, what the participant has just heard. The idea is that if the participant does not have the structure in his grammar, he will never be able to reproduce it . In the In the following section, we address the question from the perspective of L2 acquisition.In this section, we first present some psycholinguistic studies that investigated the acquisition of the subjunctive by French L2 learners from different L1 backgrounds, namely, Italian, Spanish, Finnish, Turkish, Russian, and English. This cross-linguistic approach will allow us to consider both the diversity of difficulties encountered in learning the subjunctive and the role performed by the learner’s L1.Among the most well-known studies on the acquisition of the French subjunctive is the work by Bartning  and je veux que (‘I want that’) + V (infinitive or past participle co-occurrence or il faut que (‘it is necessary that’) + V (infinitive or past participle) and il faut que (‘it is necessary that’) + neutralized form/indicative ; {3} emergence of contexts of il faut (‘it is necessary’) + INF and il faut P (‘it is necessary P’) (with infinitives and indicatives); {4} emergence of subjunctive in mandatory contexts in correct (il faut que j’aille ‘It is necessary that I go’) and incorrect forms (pour que le couple va ‘for the couple to go’), coexistence of two structures il faut que (‘it is necessary that’) + INF and il faut que (‘it is necessary that’) + SUBJ; {5} good command of the structure il faut que (‘it is necessary that’) + SUBJ and with different conjunctions, late emergence of contexts with negative verbs without the subjunctive  [Following the analysis of the occurrences of the subjunctive in the two corpora, Bartning and Schlyter  determin can …’)  in all c can …’)  (p. 293) can …’) , while tpouvoir ‘can’, vouloir ‘to want’, faire ‘to do’. This method of the acquisitional pathway is very useful for understanding how the subjunctive emerges and develops over time in learners of French L2. The weakness of the method, however, is that it does not inform us about why the acquisition of the subjunctive occurs only at stage 6 (or 4 in the case of de Paula) in advanced learners and not before. Some researchers argued that the typological distance/relation between the L1 and the L2 could perform an important role. In fact, Kellerman [It is worth noting that before Bartning and Schlyter , Brum deellerman  claimed ellerman  confirmeThis was demonstrated in a psycholinguistic production study by Badalamenti (2013) on Italian learners of French L2. Two different studies were carried out to analyze the emergence of different grammatical structures in French L2; the first one was longitudinal, and the second was cross-sectional. Her corpus was based on 75 Italian university students of French L2, aged between 18 to 54. They were divided into two groups: (1) group A: students whose objective was to be teachers of French L2 and (2) group B: students in political sciences  and that students, therefore, confound the subjunctive with the present tense of the indicative (Je mange une pomme ‘I eat an apple’ vs. Il faut que je mange une pomme ‘I must eat an apple’). For the students who used the subjunctive, it appeared to be employed with conjunctions that trigger it in subordinate clauses when the subject in the main and the subordinate clause is the same. Some rare contexts with the imperfect subjunctive were also found. She suggests placing those students who employed the subjunctive in the low advanced stage of acquisition proposed by Bartning and Schlyter [plus-que-parfait tense of the indicative and the conditional. It can be inferred from this that the L1 may be a facilitator of the acquisition of the subjunctive for Portuguese learners because the subjunctive exists in Portuguese. Unlike Portuguese and Italian, the Finnish verbal system does not have an equivalent for the subjunctive. To express it, Finnish speakers must use all the semantic components equivalent to the original clause in French , Finnish. kunpa hiisi teidät korjaisiconditionalkaikkineen päivineen (Leino) ‘Could you be to all devils’. It is intriguing to note that, as discussed by Paloheimo [We will now discuss the role of the typological relation in the acquisition of the French subjunctive in more detail by reviewing selected psycholinguistic studies investigating Finnish, Turkish, Russian, and Anglophone learners of French. In Finnish, Paloheimo  evaluateSchlyter . In factSchlyter  (p. 163)Schlyter , who obso, 1990, ). These aloheimo , FinnishJe cuisine ‘I cook vs. Il faut que je cuisine ‘I have to cook’). To overcome this problem, learners rely on their L1 even if the transfer is not positive (in Lado’s terms).The issue of transfer in second language acquisition had already been discussed by Lado , who profaire ‘to do’, prendre ‘to take’ and devoir ‘to have to’) and low-frequency verbs , Sergeeva and Chevrot [Another parameter to consider when studying the process of the acquisition of time, aspect, and mood of an L2 is the frequency of occurrence of the linguistic tokens in the learners’ input  triggered the use of the subjunctive in subordinate clauses. Howard concluded that students, even at an advanced level, whether they had lived in a French-speaking country or not, seldom produce subjunctive forms but that they produce more contexts where the subjunctive could be used. His conclusions  than subordinating conjunctions or negative clauses forms . The authors concluded that “it appears that affirmative subjunctive triggers represent a key source of development, with most change evident for lower proficiency learners” [il faut que ‘it is necessary that’, il souhaite que ‘He wants that’, il est important que ‘It is important that’, Il doute que ‘He doubts that’, etc., are important cues for students to better use the French subjunctive. Second, as suggested by McManus and Mitchell [Concerning the period spent abroad and the acquisition process, McManus and Mitchell  investigearners” . Two impearners” ,110,111,Mitchell , affirmaMitchell  concernifalloir que ‘to have to’, vouloir que ‘to want to’, ne pas penser que ‘don’t think that’, avant que ‘before …’, and pour que ‘to …’) ) McManus  found thmean age = 14.42, SD = 1.12 years, first exposure to French at 9.47 years) in their second and final year of an undergraduate degree or their one-year postgraduate degree in modern and foreign languages took part in the study. Participants performed three tasks: an eye-tracking reading task, an acceptability judgment task, and a lexical test. The research questions sought to determine whether sensitivity was modulated by L1–L2 differences in verbal mood featural formal configurations and whether the level of proficiency performed a role in the detection of errors involving subjunctive use. Results from the acceptability judgment task showed that participants had knowledge of the French subjunctive but were unable to apply their knowledge when reading the sentences [In a recent study, Dudley and Slabakova  used eyeentences . The eyeTaken together, all the studies presented above state that the subjunctive is a great model of grammatical complexity and that it is difficult to acquire. From the above-mentioned studies, the following generalizations can be made to account for the difficulty of acquiring this complexity in French. It seems that proficiency is an important factor that influences the acquisition of the subjunctive. The studies showed that only intermediate-advanced learners produce it correctly. Furthermore, it was underlined that the linguistic typological relation between L1–L2 performs an important role. As evidenced by Badalamenti , TokowicThe following section presents the case of processing the subjunctive by native German and English speakers in order to account for how future research should proceed for applying it to French.As already stated, to our knowledge, no studies to date have investigated the acquisition of the French subjunctive by French learners adopting neuroscience techniques, such as EEG or fMRI. However, there is evidence from research using EEG and fMRI of processing clauses containing the subjunctive in German and English by native German and English speakers. We discuss what these studies show us about the cognitive mechanisms underlying the processing of the subjunctive and how findings from EEG and fMRI are useful for developing research in French. We start by presenting the case of processing the subjunctive in German , then thWenn der Motor heute an wäre, … würde er dann Treibstoff verbrauchen? ‘If the engine were on today, … would it then consume fuel?’) to structures containing the indicative and expressing hypotheticality , which did not contradict the facts represented by the real world and thus reflected an almost expected hypothetical assumption and where the assumption lost its unreal character. They tested 21 native German speakers using both written and spoken German sentences which were composed of 18 Counterfactual (CF)  and 18 hypothetical (HYP)  sentences. Participants were instructed to read the visually presented sentences carefully (or to listen to them in the auditory condition) and to decide about the consistency between the antecedent and consequent events. They were encouraged to rely on their common sense and world knowledge instead of logical or probabilistic considerations.Counterfactuals refer to events that could have happened but did not. They also denote facts that contradict the real world . To study the processing of counterfactuals, Kulakova and colleagues  used theThe results showed activation in the right occipital cortex (cuneus) and the right basal ganglia (caudate nucleus) during the processing of counterfactual sentences for both the visual and the auditory presentation, which excluded a visual processing artifact. Generally, the occipital cortex is associated with mental imagery , i.e., twärenWenn die Würfel gezinkt subjunctive, dann wäre das Spiel fair/unfair. ‘If the dice subjunctivehad been rigged, then the game would have been fair/unfair.’) and in the indicative   ( (p. 3)).ERPs were recorded at the point of mood disambiguation in the antecedent and were compared between the conditional clauses in the subjunctive and in the indicative. Results showed a transient negative deflection in frontal regions for the subjunctive compared to the indicative mood in a time window of 450–600 ms. The authors discussed their results with respect to working memory requirements for rule application and increased referential processing demands for the representation of counterfactuals’ dual meaning. The authors suggested that when counterfactually is involved, then the dual meaning is processed from the first moment at the earliest point where counterfactually is marked by subjunctive mood.In their study, Kulakova and Nieuwald  used their and oir/re), which allows differentiation with the present indicative. On the other hand, Kulakova and Nieuwald [This EEG and fMRI evidence of the processing of the subjunctive in English and German L1 could enable future research to better understand the neural underpinning of how the subjunctive is processed in native speakers of French. On the one hand, as underlined by Kulakova and colleagues , since tNieuwald  showed tIn conclusion, while it is interesting to use neuroscience techniques in order to know how, when, and where the processing of the complexity of the subjunctive takes place, some researchers accounted for the difficulty of acquiring and producing and also of the complexity of processing some L2 structures by proposing different neurocognitive models. In order to better understand the difficulty of acquiring certain complex linguistic structures in L2, we will discuss two neurocognitive models that may help us to explain why L2 complex linguistic structures are difficult to acquire and produce. These two neurocognitive models are the Shallow Structure Hypothesis  and the Shallow Structures Hypothesis (SSH) [Declarative/Procedural Model [We will focus on two models of L2 acquisition of syntactic complex structures, the is (SSH) ,6,7,8 anal Model ,10,11,12wh-questions) by semantic, pragmatic, discourse, surface-level cues, and mechanisms. It is important to note that, as underlined by the authors, the SSH does not assume that L2 learners rely only on superficial structure-building information, but it suggests that in the case of processing L2 complex syntactic structures, L2 learners “compute grammatical representations that lack complex hierarchical structure” , and thucture” ( (p. 111)ucture”  proposed by Ullman ,10,11,12According to Ullman , given tThese two models may help us to account for the difficulty in acquiring and the complexity of processing the French subjunctive in French L2. In fact, on the one hand, it may be useful to consider that when structures in the subjunctive mood in French L2 are processed by learners from languages where the subjunctive exists  but these structures differ in learners’ L1, it could be difficult to assess and stabilize the differences. On the other hand, for learners where the subjunctive is expressed differently in their L1 from French , the processing of the French subjunctive may be more lexico-semantically than morphosyntactically driven until a very high level of proficiency is attained based on learner’s experience with French, nature of exposure to French, instruction, AoA of French, or immersion in a French-speaking country.complexity of the French subjunctive. Our goal here was to review combined linguistic, psycholinguistic, and neurocognitive studies that investigated the acquisition of the subjunctive in French L2 by different learners in comparison to French native speakers. The originality of this review is to present the contribution of mental chronometry studies, including factors such as typological relation between L1 and L2, proficiency, and syntactic acquisition of an L2, to the study of how syntactic complexity, such as the subjunctive in French is processed, and how these results might help us to better understand the processing of linguistic complexities by using different neuroscience techniques .This review of questions aimed to disentangle the different factors accounting for the Concerning the complexity of the subjunctive, some researchers ,122,123 je mange ‘I eat’ (present indicative) > je manger + ai ‘I’ll eat’ (simple future). She states that when children and learners of an L2 acquire verbal conjugation they start by acquiring those verb forms that can be used to replace other forms. These verb forms are bases for deriving other verb forms, as shown in the example above. In most cases, the base form of the verb, in French and some other Romance languages, is the present singular of the indicative . Her suggestion had already been echoed by Guillaume [-re/-oir) were used more often than the first conjugation (-re) in French. However, the verbs of the third conjugation, which were frequent, occurred in a small number of forms. On the other hand, the first conjunction occurred less frequently but represented a great proportion of verb forms ending in -er (-er = 124 verbs out of 1060 uses (76%) vs. verbs ending in—re/oir 29 verbs out of 1706 uses (17.9%), [Taken together, these studies suggest that the pathway of acquisition toward the subjunctive is the following: present > imperfect > future > conditional > subjunctive. According to Bybee ,134, somuillaume , who sho(17.9%), . Wilmet (17.9%),  proposedmanger ‘to eat’) are more frequent than verbs ending in -ir , or than verbs ending in -re/oir (vendre ‘to sell’/concevoir ‘to understand’). Additionally, for verbs ending in -er, there is no morphophonological difference between the indicative and the subjunctive; both are formally realized identically . It is likely that acquiring a linguistic phenomenon that is not morphophonologically salient might be difficult for learners of French. In addition, the subjunctive has two bases: one for the first three persons of the singular and the third person of the plural  and 2 for the 1st and 2nd persons of the plural . Understanding, acquiring, and processing this system might be difficult and complex. It might take much longer than for the conditional mood. With irregular verbs, the acquisition might prove even more difficult because of the irregularities.These findings might help to explain why French L2 learners first acquire the imperfect, then the future, moving on then to the conditional, and last, to the subjunctive. Once they have acquired the verbal forms of the present tense of the indicative, they can replicate these forms for other tenses and modes, as in the case of the conditional and subjunctive. Conditional contexts appear before the subjunctive, maybe because future inflections are easier to apply to the verbal forms to conjugate the conditional than imperfect ones (for the subjunctive). Once learners have understood that they can just add an “s” to the inflexional endings of the future indicative, they can use the conditional. For the subjunctive, the matter is more complicated. On the one hand, verbs ending in -er  , who argcomplexity of processing in general, in the field of the neurocognition of language, at least two factors can be invoked: semantic and syntactic. Interestingly, the EEG technique of event-related brain potentials (ERP) allows us to differentiate language processes based on different neural responses. For example, it is now accepted in the literature on the cognitive neuroscience of language  could be used by L2 learners of French when confronted with such syntactic complexity. This different scalp distribution might help to understand, in the case of L2 processing, if complex morphosyntactic structures are processed in the same way in natives and L2 learners. Moreover, quantitative/qualitative differences between native speakers and L2 learners for any language processes under investigation can be discussed by comparing both amplitude (in microvolts) and peak latency (in milliseconds) of specific ERPs. One could infer that linguistic complexity  might have a different scalp distribution in L2 learners when it is rare/unpreferred and when it is expressed differently in learners’ L1. Additionally, the issue of the processing strategies used by L2 learners of French raises the question of the typological relationship between one’s L1 and L2 in determining how the underlying language processes work, in L2, depending on whether the syntactic structures involved are expressed differently or not in the learners’ L1 [As for the a review ) that sea review ,139, whia review ,53) showners’ L1 .The fact remains that we still do not know if the subjunctive in French is neurocognitively processed in the same way by natives and learners, both quantitatively (amplitudes or latencies may differ in native speakers and French L2 learners) and qualitatively (different neurocognitive markers may be implicated). The existing literature has only investigated the production of the subjunctive, from a psycholinguistic point of view, in French-speaking communities. What is well established is that native-speaking French children acquire the subjunctive early in their language development. We can hypothesize that these “few occurrences”, as stated by some linguists, are sufficient for them to acquire the subjunctive but that they are not sufficiently frequent for learners of French L2. Maybe the problem is not so much the occurrences of the subjunctive but the fact that the neurocognitive processing of the subjunctive may differ in native French and French L2 learners. One could assume that, as remarked by some EEG and fMRI studies ,144,145 EEG and fMRI studies demonstrated that with a high level of proficiency in L2, the same brain neuronal circuits are recruited during L1 and L2 processing. For example, Perani and colleagues  investigConcerning the processing of the French subjunctive, further research should investigate the question of acquisition of mood first in French children, from a neurocognitive point of view, by using techniques, such as EEG or fMRI to better understand the neurocognitive processes implicated during the processing of this verbal mood and their precise location in the brain. The same paradigm should then be applied to analyze the processing of this mood in French adult native speakers in order to detect whether qualitative or quantitative differences or brain area activations, are present in native children and adults. According to SSH, there should be no difference in processing between children and adults; both should be capable of detecting morphosyntactic violations of the subjunctive. In contrast, the D/P model attributes a determining role to linguistic experience.With respect to French L2 learners, given the two cognitive models of L2 syntactic processing, i.e., the SSH hypothesis and the D/P model, we strongly believe that the SSH hypothesis applies to our example of complexity in French. In fact, as shown by some EEG studies, when processing syntactically complex L2 structures, especially when they do not exist in the learners’ L1, learners process them by using semantic/pragmatic knowledge, at least transiently, at some stage of L2 learning. EEG/ERP allows us to study the use of such a processing strategy in L2 learners since there are well-identified neurophysiological markers associated with semantic and pragmatic processing . FollowAs displayed in To account for this hypothesis, different factors should be taken into consideration: time and the nature of exposure to the L2, type of L2 instruction, age of L2 acquisition, proficiency level  , linguistic dominance in L1 and L2 ,148.Thus, it could be interesting and fruitful, for future research, to examine the neurocognitive markers responsible for the processing of the subjunctive in French native speakers and French L2 learners. Those which merit attention are (E)LAN for morphosyntactic processes ,56,57,64To conclude this review, we have tried to show some directions to be followed to answer the research questions we proposed at the beginning. For the first question, current research indicates that complexity at different levels of linguistic analyses may involve different neurocognitive processing mechanisms in L1 and L2. These mechanisms may be expressed qualitatively (different neurocognitive markers in L1 and L2 processing) and/or quantitatively (different latencies and/or amplitudes in native speakers and in L2 learners). For the second question, the literature shows that proficiency performs a crucial role in attaining native-like processes. Furthermore, evidence indicates that low-proficiency learners have more difficulties producing some complex L2 structures, suggesting that a high level is needed for specific L2 syntactic structures. Finally, the typological relation between L1–L2 seems to have a great impact on the attainment of native-like neurocognitive processing. Research suggests that when linguistic structures are similar in L1 and L2, learners are sensitive to morphosyntactic violations, but when these differ, learners cannot detect them. It may be because they use different neurocognitive mechanisms or more lexico-semantic driven procedures. In terms of pedagogical implications, research suggests  that the


OncoPrint, the plot to visualize an overview of genetic variants in sequencing data, has been widely used in the field of cancer genomics. However, still, there have been no Python libraries capable to generate OncoPrint yet, a big hassle to plot OncoPrints within Python-based genetic variants analysis pipelines. This paper introduces a new Python package PyOncoPrint, which can be easily used to plot OncoPrints in Python. The package is based on the existing widely used scientific plotting library Matplotlib, the resulting plots are easy to be adjusted for various needs. OncoPrint, the plot to visualize an overview of the genetic variants of the deposited data at cBioPortal ,2, has bThe package is mainly based on Matplotlib , the de In addition to the main plot , PyOncoPPyOncoPrint can automatically sort the samples and genes by the frequency of each genetic variant so that one can easily overview the plotted genetic variants, and be ready to use as a figure in a research paper. The genetic variation data can be easily imported as Pandas data frame , as wellThe input data to the PyOncoPrint is Pandas dataframe which contains a matrix of samples vs. genes. The input follows the format of cBioPortal’s CSV exports—each element of the matrix defines variants as strings, concatenated with commas. Thus, one can either generate their own data or just convert a cBioPortal’s export to a Pandas dataframe, as an input to PyOncoPrint. By providing the input data with marker definitions and annotations, just one simple function ‘pyoncoprint’ generates the OncoPrint. A detailed example, that shows the basic usage of PyOncoPrint—including how to define the input data, markers, and annotations—is available online on our GitHub repository.We demonstrated visualization of OncoPrint of The Cancer Genome Atlas lung adenocarcinoma data using PyOncoPrint. The data was obtained from the Oncoprinter at cBioPortal, containing 24 genes and 996 patient samples as a tab-delimited format.The downloaded data was then loaded as a Pandas dataframe object using the “read_csv” function of Pandas. The patients having no mutations in the 24 genes were truncated, resulting in 463 remaining patients having at least one mutation.Next, the marker types for each mutation pattern were defined. For demonstration purpose, three different marker types for the mutation types were defined as following: (1) fill patterns, which fills the marker with a specified color and given height; (2) an asterisk symbol (*); and (3) a custom triangle pattern defined using “Polygon” class available in Matplotlib. All of the markers were defined with different colors so that the mutation types could be distinguishable from each other.Finally, the plot was generated using “oncoprint” method of PyOncoPrint , which shttps://github.com/pnucolab/pyoncoprint).We developed a novel Python package, PyOncoPrint, which provides an easy way to plot OncoPrints using Python. Thanks to its simple usage and easy-to-use interface, the package can be easily adapted to various Python-based command-line pipelines. The source code is freely available on our GitHub repository (


On June 24, 2022, The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, leaving abortion legislation entirely up to states. However, anti-abortion activists and legislators have organized for decades to prevent abortion access through restrictive state-level legislation. In 2019, South Carolina legislators proposed a bill criminalizing abortion after 6 weeks gestation, before most people know they are pregnant. The current study examines the anti-abortion rhetoric used in legislative hearings for this extreme abortion restriction in South Carolina. By examining the arguments used by anti-abortion proponents, we aim to expose their misalignment with public opinion on abortion and demonstrate that their main arguments are not supported by and often are counter to medical and scientific evidence.a priori and emergent coding.We qualitatively analyzed anti-abortion discourse used during legislative hearings of SC House Bill 3020, The South Carolina Fetal Heartbeat Protection from Abortion Act. Data came from publicly available videos of legislative hearings between March and November 2019, during which members of the public and legislators testified for and against the abortion ban. After the videos were transcribed, we thematically analyzed the testimonies using Testifiers (Anti-abortion proponents) defended the ban using scientific disinformation and by citing advances in science to redefine “life.” A central argument was that a fetal “heartbeat”  detected at 6 weeks gestation indicates life. Anti-abortion proponents used this to support their argument that the 6-week ban would “save lives.” Other core strategies compared anti-abortion advocacy to civil rights legislation, vilified supporters and providers of abortion, and framed people who get abortions as victims. Personhood language was used across strategies and was particularly prominent in pseudo-scientific arguments.Abortion restrictions are detrimental to the health and wellbeing of people with the potential to become pregnant and to those who are pregnant. Efforts to defeat abortion bans must be grounded in a critical and deep understanding of anti-abortion strategies and tactics. Our results reveal that anti-abortion discourse is extremely inaccurate and harmful. These findings can be useful in developing effective approaches to countering anti-abortion rhetoric. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision, overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and leaving states to decide on and enact their own abortion legislation. Since then, abortion access has become increasingly difficult and confusing within a fragmented and polarized abortion landscape. Many states in which Republicans control state legislatures have passed extreme abortion restrictions or complete bans  in 2019, who aimed to pass a 6-week abortion ban. The South Carolina Fetal Heartbeat Protection from Abortion Act, House Bill 3020 (H.3020) was introduced to the SC House on January 8, 2019 . It requRoe v. Wade no longer exists to overrule state-level bans on abortion. In this historical moment, it is critical to deconstruct and understand the strategies and tactics that aim to restrict abortion access and to position these strategies within the context of a post-Roe world. Further, it is important to illuminate the consequences of restrictive abortion legislation, especially in terms of deepening abortion-related stigma and the detrimental impact on the health and lives of South Carolina residents, especially those marginalized by racism, poverty, and anti-LGBTQ and anti-immigrant sentiment and policies. By examining the arguments used by anti-abortion advocates, we aim to expose their misalignment with public opinion on abortion  and demo2.2.1.We utilized publicly available videos of meetings of the SC House Judiciary Constitutional Law Subcommittee and the SC Senate Medical Affairs Subcommittee, during which members of the public provided testimony for H.3020. The meetings took place between March and September 2019, with video footage posted on the South Carolina legislature video archives website and the Women's Rights Empowerment Network Facebook page. We analyzed arguments from anti-abortion proponents, including 19 South Carolina legislative representatives as well as 22 community members who made anti-abortion arguments in support of the bill or demanding even stricter abortion legislation.2.2.https://www.facebook.com/WomensRightsandEmpowermentNetwork) and the South Carolina legislature video archives website (https://www.scstatehouse.gov/video/archives.php) and transcribed using Happy Scribe, a virtual transcription service. The transcripts were then fidelity checked by the research team and imported into NVivo, where they were thematically coded. Researcher-perceived demographic characteristics  of the testifiers were noted when testifiers did not provide characteristics in their testimony. We also conducted a word count of terminology used in the testimonies to characterize fetuses.Video files of the hearings were downloaded from the Women's Rights and Empowerment Network's Facebook page  and clarified any questions about the codebook that arose while coding. We also discussed any new codes or other changes we thought should be made to the codebook. When changes were made to the codebook, each of the previously coded transcripts was recoded by one of the first two authors based on extensive discussion about the codes among all three researchers. Additionally, the research team regularly communicated with colleague researchers Evans and Narasimhan, who analyzed 6-week ban hearings in Georgia. Through this process, the codebook was frequently reevaluated and refined to best represent the South Carolina data.We expanded the codebook used in the analysis of Georgia's 6-week ban to include new themes that arose in South Carolina. First, we added codes to characterize scientific misinformation, including codes identifying different types of evidence  and codes around specific arguments used to promote misinformation . We also added codes that characterized moral arguments against abortion, including limiting government overreach, racism, abortion clinic profit, carry to term coercion, abortions for convenience or burden, equating abortion with murder, organized responses to abortion, and value of life. Finally, we expanded a single code for rape used in the Georgia codebook by adding more specific codes, such as arguments for and against exceptions for rape, abortion as evidence of rape, descriptions of rape victims, and responsibility of rape victims to report.2.3.The Institutional Review Board at the University of South Carolina reviewed the study protocol and determined this study did not meet the criteria for human subjects research. Although quotes can be matched with video footage, throughout this article, we do not directly identify any individual who provided testimony except the primary legislative sponsor. Given that all testimony analyzed is part of the public record, our approach respects research ethics related to privacy and confidentiality.3.n = 12) or 55 or older (n = 16), white (n = 34), and male (n = 28).Researcher-perceived and self-identified characteristics of the anti-abortion proponents who gave testimony are summarized in 3.1.In our analysis, we found that arguments could be classified into two major argument frames: scientific disinformation and moral arguments, with some anti-abortion proponents using both frames to build their case for supporting H.3020.3.2.Throughout the testimonies, proponents of H.3020 framed arguments using claims based in scientific disinformation. These types of claims misrepresented scientific findings and used scientific and medical terms and explanations of pregnancy and abortion in inaccurate or misleading ways to justify the ban. Both individuals with medical backgrounds and those without scientific training used scientific arguments to support the ban. Arguments that relied on scientific disinformation can be classified into four themes: (1) Arguments from biased medical professionals; (2) Arguments that misrepresented science; (3) Arguments that attempted to redefine life from a scientific perspective; and (4) Arguments using value or logic statements to connect scientific and moral arguments.3.2.1.Four supporters of H.3020 from the 2019 hearings were medical professionals. Each began their statements by describing their training and credentials in detail, with only one claiming to specialize in obstetrics. The other three mentioned that their training in obstetrics was outdated or not extensive, yet they felt they could serve as experts despite their “limited experience.” One even stated, “I don't have the level of expertise and experience of my obstetrical colleagues,” yet continued to share his testimony about refusing to refer pregnant people seeking abortions to abortion providers. All the medical professionals mentioned the Hippocratic Oath, referring to it as their “oath to protect the life of the born and the unborn,” and their duty “to speak on behalf of the unborn.”The medical professionals with experience working in family medicine or obstetrics shared stories of coercing pregnant people to listen to and view their ultrasounds.“We have a look at the ultrasound and have the mother see the heartbeat. Upon seeing the heartbeat, she realizes this is a child and it's her child … Most of the women who have an opportunity simply to see truth—that this is their child they’re carrying—decide to continue with the pregnancy.”In a later testimony, this same physician stated that he would “never coerce,” yet he described how he would offer free ultrasounds to pregnant people who had made it clear they wanted an abortion and then use that ultrasound as an opportunity to convince them to continue their pregnancies:“We'd put the ultrasound probe on and see this teeny little peanut of a fetus—or an embryo, really– and then hung around a little bit further and then see this teeny little fluttering, which comprised a kind of a rapid beat that you could see. And almost invariably– not all the time, but almost invariably– I would point that out and the lady would say, ‘Is that my baby's heartbeat?’ Almost invariably, that was a comment that was made. … And then after that, the vast majority of those women who would see that heartbeat would then decide to keep their pregnancies. Not all, but many of them did decide to keep them.”Medical professionals also used medical terminology in biased ways to bolster their claims. One described fetal development by saying:“At 6 1/2 weeks, the teeny little baby is about a little bit less than an inch long; has very incipient eyes, head, chest, a two chambered heart; has limb buds with teeny little buds that will eventually become fingers at the time of the average time for elective abortion.”Another physician stated, “We can discuss all day long here today whether the fluttering, the pulsation and cardinal vessels of a tiny embryo comprise a heartbeat or two chamber for chamber heart.” Despite his medical expertise, he went on to say, “When a mother says that it is a heartbeat, that's a heartbeat.”Intertwining their anti-abortion opinions with their medical “expertise” and “experience,” the medical professionals who testified in support of the 6-week ban made grandiose claims about how wrong they believe abortion to be. One stated, “Any medical procedure that interrupts or terminates that developing human life for whatever reason constitutes the taking of a human life.” Another said:“There is no circumstance, no matter how desperate or difficult, that justifies the killing of innocent unborn children with beating hearts. And trust me, as a family doctor, I have dealt with all of these desperate and difficult circumstances that surround the conception of unborn children.”Another obstetrician and medical director at a crisis pregnancy center stated, “I have lots of patients and I don't tell them, ‘I’m a Christian, I don’t believe in abortion, you can’t have an abortion’ … I talk to them about their options.”3.2.2.Many anti-abortion proponents relied heavily on data, statistics, or numbers to bolster their claims. However, they rarely referred to actual sources and often misrepresented the statistics they cited. Representative John McCravy, the primary legislative sponsor of H.3020 stated, “If that heartbeat's detected, there's a 90 percent chance of that baby's survival” and “we know from medical science that that's about 90 to 95 percent now.” Fetal cardiac activity – what supporters of this bill call a “heartbeat” – can be detected as early as 6 weeks gestation, which is long before the possibility of a viable birth. While viability is a complex medical concept determined by more than gestational age, leading experts in the field of fetal and maternal medicine do not consider births before 20 weeks gestation to be near the threshold of viability  . FurtherOther speakers made erroneous statements about the consequences of abortion, such as “the statistics show that 10% of women who have abortions never have another child” and “there is no data to support the claim that abortion is safer than childbirth.” These speakers did not provide sources for these claims. However, even if the former statement were true, 90% of people who get abortions would go on to have a child, which is high given the fact that nearly 17% of older adults in the United States do not have biological children . There aSome speakers used anecdotal evidence to generalize about the experiences of patients, displaying that they lacked the ability (or desire) to differentiate between their subjective experiences and scientific evidence. A registered nurse referred to a “brief survey” that she conducted of obstetrics and gynecology (OB-GYNs) at the hospital where she worked. She said her sample consisted of “a handful of doctors” but she used research terminology and drew generalized conclusions. She stated that, “All but one [doctor] admitted to seeing multiple women in the emergency room with abortion complications,” and that there were “frequent diagnoses of retained products of conception, punctured uterus and undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy, a life-threatening condition.” She followed up by stating, “That is when a woman has had an abortion without having an ultrasound to determine the location of the pregnancy.” Similarly, an obstetrician, who was also the medical director at a crisis pregnancy center, claimed to see patients who reported physical and mental harm from abortions. Another medical doctor recounted his experience with patients seeking abortions, stating, “The vast majority of those women who would see that heartbeat would then decide to keep their pregnancies.” These speakers misrepresented anecdotal experience as scientific evidence, describing experiences that contradict research showing that abortions are very safe –20, 23 aDisregard for scientific evidence was also demonstrated when anti-abortion proponents stated that the scientific backing for the bill was obvious without providing data or evidence to support this claim. For example, one person stated, “Obviously, the scientific case for life has been made. We've all been through middle school [and] high school biology.” He went on to say, “We know that organisms that reproduce sexually when the sperm fertilized egg, there's a unique, genetically unique organism.”3.2.3.Another prominent strategy of anti-abortion proponents was attempting to redefine life and personhood from an ostensibly scientific perspective. One way they did this was through use of various words and phrases to promote a new standard of life and personhood. Throughout all the anti-abortion testimonies we analyzed, the term “heartbeat” was used 97 times when not referring to the bill itself; “baby” was used 62 times; “unborn” was used 45 times; “unborn child” was used 16 times; “personhood” was used eight times; and “pre-born” was used six times.The word “heartbeat” was particularly instrumental to the anti-abortion arguments trying to redefine life from a scientific perspective, with many supporters of the bill framing their arguments around the heartbeat being the new standard for life. The primary legislative sponsor of the bill stated in his opening testimony, “…the heartbeat is a definite marker and a predictability of survival.” One pastor stated, “While not the beginning of life, the heartbeat is a universally recognized indicator of life.” Another speaker, the executive director of an anti-abortion non-profit, stated, “The absence of a heartbeat indicates death, then logically the presence of a heartbeat indicates life.”Anti-abortion proponents also suggested that advances in science and technology have changed the standard for fetal viability and how the medical field understands life. For example, representative McCravy, H.3020's primary legislative sponsor, stated:“There's also a consensus among medical experts, scientists, lawyers and ethicists that the standard of viability has changed. That we now know many more things about the unborn child that we did not know in the 1970s. So we've had so many advances in medical and scientific technology that have expanded our knowledge of prenatal life.”Neither this representative nor anyone else making similar arguments cited evidence for the claim that advances in scientific technology had redefined the medical standards of viability or life. However, though there have been advances in care for pre-term deliveries, fetal viability occurs long after 6 weeks gestation. Births between 20 and 26 weeks are considered “periviable,” with viability depending on various factors surrounding a pregnancy .In contrast to those who tried to redefine life and personhood at a fetal “heartbeat,” some anti-abortion proponents refused to use this as the new standard for life. For example, a medical professional in favor of the bill stated, “My expert medical testimony is that human life begins at conception. That was what I was told in medical school 40 years ago. That was true then. That's true now. Nothing has changed in the ensuing 40 years.” One anti-abortion proponent, who opposed the bill in favor of stricter legislation, stated:“The heartbeat bill does not establish justice for all human beings at fertilization but chooses the biological benchmark which may occur and be detected for a month and a half or later after fertilization and allows all human beings in the womb prior to that point to be exterminated.”3.2.4.Many supporters of H.3020 intertwined scientific claims with value or logic statements as the basis of moral arguments. Since science provided a new standard for detecting life, anti-abortion proponents argued it was clear that abortion after a “heartbeat” is detected is taking a life, which is immoral. Some who used this line of reasoning referred to it as “logical,” “rational,” or “common sense” when making their arguments. A pastor said, “Science and common sense tells us that a heartbeat signifies life,” while not following up with an explanation of what he meant by either “science” or “common sense.” Another speaker, a family physician, stated:“You are logical and rational people, and I trust that you make your decisions based on good rationale and good logic and not on emotion. Life begins at conception and there is a heartbeat in every unborn child. Nothing changes that fact. That's logical, that's rational. And I trust that you make your decisions based on good logic and good rationale.”The framing of H.3020 as the heartbeat bill provided an opportunity for anti-abortion advocates to claim a novel scientific standard for life, which made it easier for supporters of H.3020 to claim that their connection of scientific and moral arguments was logical.3.3.Supporters of H.3020 made various arguments that framed abortion and those providing or seeking abortions as immoral. Moral arguments across the testimonies could be classified into five themes: (1) Promoting the (perceived) righteous cause of protecting the unborn; (2) Religion as the basis of morality; (3) Vilifying and stigmatizing the pro-choice movement; (4) Vilifying healthcare providers; and (5) Vilifying and stigmatizing people who get abortions.3.3.1.Based on the assumptions that a “heartbeat”– or some other indicator of fetal development– signified human life, anti-abortion proponents argued that abortion after 6 weeks is murder. While many simply used the word murder (or related terms) to describe abortion, others attempted to explain why they believed abortion was equivalent to killing a person. Some supporters of the bill believed that life begins at conception and, hence, abortion before 6 weeks gestation should also be defined as murder. However, many argued that, since absence of a heartbeat is an indication of death, presence of a heartbeat indicates life. Hence, in “civilized” societies, abortion after detection of a fetal “heartbeat” is taking a life. Many promoted the fetal “heartbeat” as the new standard for life in a modern or “civilized society” that does not allow innocent humans to be killed. One person who provided testimony, the director of an anti-abortion non-profit, summarized this line of thinking:“Another fact-based saying is if the absence of a heartbeat indicates death, then logically the presence of a heartbeat indicates life. In a civilized society, we should all agree that the human heartbeat is the objective scientific proof of life. In a civilized culture, we can all agree that it is barbaric and a savage act to kill an innocent, innocent member of the human family with a beating heart.”Supporters of the bill called abortion genocide and both directly and indirectly compared it to historical injustices and atrocities. In their view, just as society's morals have progressed regarding historical atrocities, society must progress by adopting this new standard of life–the fetal “heartbeat.” One white male proponent of the bill said the following:“If nothing else, history tends to judge people harshly based on the standards of the current day. Not at the time of the actual event. I never hear anyone try to justify slavery based on the standards of today. Women not having the right to vote seems ludicrous. The Jim Crow laws of the South seem cruel by today's standards. But what will we tell our grandkids about abortion when they ask why we had the chance to stop it? But we fell prey to political pressure and let the carnage continue. How would they judge us? Some will justify it as a right the mother has to do with her body as she wants, never once considering the future mother she may be carrying.”To further demonstrate the morality of H.3020 and its advocates, supporters of the bill framed the unborn as a targeted and vulnerable group in need of special protections. To do this, they co-opted language and ideas from human rights movements, suggesting abortion is an inhumane practice that violates universal principals of morality. Human rights language, including terms such as “intrinsic value” and “dignity of human life,” was used to extend the rights of humans to embryos (which anti-abortion proponents refer to as “fetuses”). Thus, supporters framed this bill and its advocates as the true champions of morality and human rights. Indeed, many supporters touted their own commitment to the “value of life.” They urged representatives listening to do the same, adding that they believed the government is responsible for protecting life through banning abortions. One speaker co-opted human rights language by saying: “Unlike pro-abortion advocates, the pro-life movement firmly believes in the value and dignity of each human life. That includes every single person in this room. And I want to tell each of you in this room, your life matters. Your life has intrinsic and immeasurable value because you are human.”A legislative representative more explicitly framed abortion as a human rights issue:“The U.S. Constitution, which all our laws must pursue, states in the Fourteenth Amendment: No state shall deprive any person of life without due process of law and order, not to any person within its jurisdiction equal protection of the laws regardless of the age, size, or dependent status. A child with a heartbeat should be treated with dignity. These unborn men and unborn women have human rights too. And yes, even children conceived through the terrible crime of rape have a right to life and justice. They have a right not to have their bodies mutilated, their choices eliminated, and their heartbeats stopped. I stand against abortion so passionately because it is the chief example in our time of the callous violation of human rights. It is our job in government to defend against this. Human children deserve to be defended.”3.3.2.While religious rhetoric was sparse across the testimonies, some anti-abortion proponents used their primarily evangelical Christian religious beliefs as the foundation for their moral arguments about the value and definition of life. For example, speakers stated they supported the bill because they believed in the value and sanctity of life of the unborn, a belief informed by their religion. In addition to claiming to respect the “value of life,” speakers making religious arguments used multiple adjectives with moral implications to describe life, such as “precious,” “sacred,” and “dignity.” The following quote exemplifies many of the adjectives used to discuss their view on the “value of life” as well as the seamless connection speakers made between religious beliefs and morality:“We want the heartbeat bill because we want to protect the God-given value and dignity of all human life, including our own. Unlike pro-abortion advocates, the pro-life movement firmly believes in the value and dignity of each human life. … Your life has intrinsic and immeasurable value because you are human. If we believe we can discard human life at its most helpless and most vulnerable, it cheapens the innate and immeasurable value that God bestowed upon each one of us at that very first moment of our own existence. Tiny, precious, and innocent lives are at stake in this legislation. But so is our very own worth and dignity.”Anti-abortion proponents who discussed religion also used other tactics to connect their religious beliefs to the immorality of abortion. Some quoted biblical scripture as evidence that “life” in the womb is determined and created by God, with some speakers explicitly stating that life begins at conception. Others used anecdotes and personal stories. Some of these stories were about pregnant people who considered abortion yet decided to carry to term because of their religious beliefs. Other stories centered people whose mothers considered aborting them but did not. While religious speakers described the inherent value of “pre-born” life as bestowed by God in scripture, they often tied the worth of the people in these stories to their potential to advance Christianity.3.3.3.In contrast to their portrayals of themselves and other advocates of H.3020, supporters of the bill framed the pro-choice movement and opponents of the bill as immoral. They framed the unborn as a vulnerable group, thereby claiming that pro-choice advocates were not only discriminatory but also proponents of child sacrifice and genocide. They further claimed pro-choice advocates devalue life and human rights and strategically dehumanize the unborn to achieve their goals. One supporter of the bill—a male physician and medical director for a crisis pregnancy center—compared societal approval of abortion to historical acceptance of chattel slavery and the Holocaust.“So you think about throughout history to make something to be able to commit atrocities against a group of people. What society has done is dehumanized them. United States with slavery and Nazi Germany with the Jews. That's what they did. They said, 'Well, they're not human', right? That's what we did. Right. Shameful. That's what we're doing. That's what we're doing with the unborn child. … I think this is a blight on our nation. And I think there's a genocide, to which we're all going to be called by our maker.”3.3.4.Supporters of the bill also vilified healthcare providers and clinics providing abortions, claiming they make exorbitant incomes from abortions while providing inadequate care and coercing people into getting abortions. One pastor questioned the motives and morality of a nearby healthcare provider offering abortions:“This past weekend, I was at [name of medical center], which is one of the busiest abortion clinics in the southeast. One of the reasons it is, is because it's the cheapest. … But I quickly asked, how much money do they make off this one center? They own three. And the answer is four to five million dollars a year. And I was thinking, man, are they really here for women? Or are they here to line their pockets? …  Our battle is against the evil. Our battle is against not anybody that's against this bill. Our battle is for flesh and blood. It's not against flesh and blood.”Another speaker—a physician and medical director at a crisis pregnancy center—attacked Planned Parenthood:“And one of the main reasons we're here today is money. This is money. And power. This is a multi-billion dollar business, abortion. And I'm telling you, I have so many patients who come to me and said ‘they didn't tell me about the risk of depression. They didn't tell me the risk I would get a perforated uterus and have a hysterectomy.’ I've seen that happen. ‘They didn't tell me about any of the risk of the suicidal thoughts and suicidal ideation.’ I have family members who have had an abortion who've never gotten over the depression from that. So we need to–if we're going to provide safe abortion–we need to make sure that people like Planned Parenthood who are making billions of dollars—half a billion of our tax dollars are going to Planned Parenthood– we need to make sure that they are properly counseling women on the not only physical risk of abortion, but the mental risk.”In 2019, Planned Parenthood's total revenue, including both government funding and private donations, was $1.6 billion while its expenses were $1.5 billion . However3.3.5.Anti-abortion proponents used multiple tactics to both stigmatize abortion and malign people who receive abortions. They characterized people who receive abortions as lazy and irresponsible or selfish and immoral and stated their objections to “abortions of convenience,” defined by multiple speakers as having an abortion for social or economic reasons and not for the life of the pregnant person or because of rape or incest. While many of these speakers stated or implied that most abortions are done for “convenience,” none cited evidence for this claim.Supporters of the bill described their aversion to “abortions of convenience” with statements like this from a legislative representative:“Over 90% of the abortions that are done in the United States are what? They are done for the manner of convenience. Not because of life of the mother. Not because a rape or incest. But because of convenience issues.”Another example came from a testifier who was an educator at a Christian university and the president of an anti-abortion non-profit: “The vast majority of abortions are obtained for social and economic reasons, not rape, incest, or life of mother. … Studies indicate that over 90% of women seek abortion for social and economic reasons.”Some anti-abortion proponents who described people who get abortions as selfish also described them as victims. They claimed abortions are mentally, emotionally, and physically harmful to people who receive them. For example, one person described her own abortion as selfish, yet said that she and other people who get abortions are unaware of (what she perceived as) emotional repercussions of abortion:“I got an abortion, and it was a heartless, selfish act of snuffing out a precious life for my convenience. Women don't know, nor are they told about, the guilt and the shame that they will carry the rest of their lives. Abortion doesn't just end the life of a baby. It hurts women, and it scars them for life. I have heard hundreds of testimonies, and I know many women will deny what I just said. They claim there have been no repercussions. However, even if they hide their guilt and their shame from themselves, or they deny it or bury it so deep that they don't feel anything anymore, they still live with it the rest of their lives.”denied an abortion are more likely in the short-term to experience adverse mental health outcomes, such as anxiety, low self-esteem, and low life satisfaction compared to people who receive abortions (In contrast to this quote, researchers have found that, among people seeking abortions, those bortions . The per“Yesterday, my husband said to me, ‘You can be forgiven, but you have still taken a life.’ Heartless. For women who have had an abortion, those are fighting words because it's difficult to face the reality that we have taken a life. Abortion is a heartless act and the argument that women have a right to their own bodies is a smokescreen to hide the reality that they can't face.”Another anti-abortion proponent who was an educator at a Christian university and the president of an anti-abortion non-profit implied that people who get abortions are victims because healthcare providers do not inform them of the risks of having an abortion. She used this argument to advocate for the new bill, which would require informed consent and provision of information about the “harms” of abortion to anyone seeking an abortion:“For many of these women, abortion is not an act of liberation. Rather, it is a violent act of despair. Many of these women have indicated they would carry their child if they were not abandoned by the father, pressured by employers, or rejected by parents. Further, many women in the United States, unlike those in South Carolina, have not been guaranteed informed consent. … They undergo abortions with no knowledge of fetal development, or knowledge of alternatives, or knowledge of the risk involved. For many women, abortion is a skillfully marketed product to prey on the fears of women in crisis. When women discover the physical, mental, and emotional scars that often surface, it is too late. I’ve met many of these women myself.”As demonstrated in the quote above, supporters of the bill framed people who get abortions as desperate victims by associating abortions with abuse and coercion. In legislative sessions on the inclusion of an exception in the bill for rape and incest, speakers focused more intently on actual victims of abuse seeking abortions. Some against the exception claimed abortion protects rapists because a baby is evidence of rape and that abortion perpetuates the trauma of victims. Conversely, they claimed that carrying a pregnancy to term provides deliverance, healing, and vindication to victims of rape and incest. This discourse around victims of rape, incest, and coercion served to stigmatize abortion as associated with abuse. A quote from one speaker–the founder and president of an anti-abortion organization–exemplifies this discourse:“And the younger a girl is, the more likely it's someone in her household, family member who's been raping her. And the more likely that it's been going on for years. And guess who reveals the rape? The baby. Her baby is ultimately her hero who can deliver her out of that abusive situation. But we see time and time again how oftentimes it's her own mother who's trafficking her, who takes her to the abortion clinic where they cover up the rape and then send her right back for repeated abortion, after abortion, after abortion. … And it is absolutely absurd to suggest that somehow more violence brings healing, more violence in the exact place where she was traumatized is somehow going to bring healing. But babies do have a way of bringing healing. … And I am so concerned when people say that somehow, you know, she's going to be better off after an abortion, when studies show that she's four times more likely to die within the next year after the abortion. They have a higher rate of murder, suicide, overdose because, again, more violence doesn't bring healing”As stated in previous sections, there is no evidence that abortions are associated with negative mental health outcomes. Indeed, people who are denied an abortion are more likely to experience poor mental health than people who get an abortion .4.Our analysis of legislative testimony in support of H.3020, both by SC legislative representatives and the public, reveals that anti-abortion advocates primarily used scientific disinformation and moral arguments–based in their concepts of morality–to promote this bill. The only prior study to investigate anti-abortion arguments used in legislative hearings for a 6-week abortion ban came out of Georgia's 6-week ban, which was introduced in 2019, around the same time as SC H.3020. Many of the anti-abortion arguments and tactics we found in South Carolina were similar to those reported in the analysis of Georgia's ban (In the current study, we found that blatant misrepresentation of science was commonly employed, with some speakers claiming there were scientific justifications for the ban without explaining these justifications and other speakers presenting opinions and anecdotal evidence as factual. This emphasis on medical and scientific arguments is consistent with anti-abortion arguments reported in an analysis of Georgia's 6-week ban. However, prior studies have found an historic lack of science-based arguments from anti-abortion activists, even within the last decade . The fraThough their scientific framing may have been relatively novel, anti-abortion advocates in the current study used scientific arguments as the basis for anti-abortion moral arguments that have long been used to promote abortion restrictions. Moral framing was prominent in the current analysis, with defenders of the bill providing arguments for why abortion was immoral and banning abortion was moral. This finding reflects a recent analysis of legislative discourse about anti-abortion policies, which found that morality frames were more common in discourse on abortion bans compared to discourse on other types of abortion restrictions .The claim that fetal cardiac activity–which supporters of SC H.3020 inaccurately called a “heartbeat”–indicates life was fundamental to many of the moral arguments used by anti-abortion speakers. Using cardiac activity as a proxy for life and personhood, defenders of the ban asserted that abortion after detection of fetal cardiac activity is murder. Supporters of a similar 6-week abortion ban in Georgia in 2019 also used cardiac activity as a proxy for life and personhood . HoweverAnti-abortion advocates also endorsed the so-called morality of the 6-week ban by co-opting civil and human rights language and explicitly comparing their efforts to eradicate abortion to historical civil and human rights movements. This rhetorical strategy was also prominent in an analysis of public testimonies in support of a similar 6-week abortion ban in Georgia in 2019 , 34. PriAnother tactic used by anti-abortion speakers in the current study was to frame the ban as sensible legislation by using phrases like “logical” and “common sense.” This type of language was not found in anti-abortion testimony for Georgia's 6-week ban . HoweverAnother theme in the current analysis that was not found in anti-abortion arguments for Georgia's 6-week ban  was negaSince the U.S. Supreme Court's Casey v. Planned Parenthood decision in 1992, abortion opponents have strategically vilified abortion providers, claiming that they mislead people about the risks of abortion . This thIn the current study, anti-abortion proponents making moral arguments also vilified people who get abortions by describing them as either lazy, selfish, and immoral or desperate victims of poverty, abusive relationships, and healthcare providers. They claimed these people are duped or forced into having abortions. Some speakers also claimed that abortions further traumatized victims of abuse, leading to a downward spiral of other harmful behaviors, including drug use and suicide. This discourse on the circumstances and effects of abortion both stigmatized abortion and allowed supporters of the abortion ban to claim it would protect women.Prior research has reported that anti-abortion advocates commonly promote lies about the harms of abortion in order to claim that abortion restrictions protect women, with some even declaring abortion opposition as a feminist stance , 36, 37.Claims that abortions are dangerous are false. Legal abortions are much safer than childbirth , 19 and Religious arguments in the current study were sparse yet notable given their absence from anti-abortion arguments in legislative hearings for Georgia's 6-week abortion ban . In SoutOur analysis had several limitations. We were unable to collect self-reported demographic information of anti-abortion proponents other than the legislators, so our estimation of participants' demographic characteristics is based on our perceptions of their race, gender, and age, which may be inaccurate. Furthermore, this analysis focused only on anti-abortion arguments, and further research is needed to analyze pro-abortion rhetoric used by those opposing abortion restrictions.5.Restricting abortions has detrimental impacts on the health and well-being of people who can become pregnant . At this