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August 16, 2007 - What's in a name? How one word changes the world of the abortion debate I often click on the link of a news article with the word "abortion" in it. It's a contemporary social topic that I am greatly interested in and passionate about my stance on it. A recent article I read on MSNBC ( "Abortion pill doesn't harm future pregnancies" ) seemed like a typical news story about abortion in our world, but for the first time it really struck me how the inclusion, or in this case the absence, of one word can make a world of a difference in the conscience and emotions of the reader. I further was sobered by the realization of the power the media has in nuturing our culture. The word I'm referring to? Baby. This particular article is merely a mundane explanation of a recent study on the infamous "abortion pill". But that's where I personally think the problem lies. It's too mundane; almost exclusively "academic/medical". Here we're talking about three (it takes two to tango ya know) very important lives and one very important decision and the Associated Press is giving it the same apathy and urgency of a gall bladder removal procedure. But therein lays the problem. Using the words they used, it does sound like removing a gall bladder. Take the first sentence in the third paragraph for instance and you will see how the aforementioned word, or its absence, changes everything. The vast majority of abortions are called surgical abortions, usually done by vacuuming an embryo or fetus out with a syringe or electric pump. You read that and it sounds as ordinary as everyday doctor/hospital kind of stuff right? I mean there are surgeries, syringe's, pumps, and cellular stuff like embryos and fetuses getting worked on everyday in a typical hospital no? Pretty normal stuff. And that is exactly how it was meant to make you feel. The word "baby" is pretty normal too, but you put that word in a sentence like the one found above and you have what equates to night and day. Try look. The vast majority of abortions are called surgical abortions, usually done by vacuuming a baby out with a syringe or electric pump. Do you feel it: that cringing, sickening feeling deep in your gut? Whereas the first iteration, the published one, allowed you to glaze over it without a second thought and without diverting your attention from the article's main premise at hand, the second one with the use of the word "baby" forced you to reconcile something that just doesn't quite match up with your conscience. Whereas the first one paints a picture of a simple medical procedure done everyday with typical instruments and typical unrecognizable blobs of flesh and cells, the second one forces you to picture a helpless, lifeless little baby with hands and toes being forcibly and mechanically "vacuumed" out of a woman's uterus with what now are death instruments on par with something you'd see on the table in a medical tent at Auschwitz some seventy years ago. Let's go a little further down the article. Read these two iterations. Generally, it involves a woman ending a pregnancy by taking one tablet of mifespristone - formerly known as RU-486 - followed by about four misoprostol pills a day or two later. The mifepristone destabilize the connecting tissue between an embryo and the uterus, and the misoprostol causes the uterus to expel the embryo. Generally, it involves a woman ending a pregnancy by taking one tablet of mifespristone - formerly known as RU-486 - followed by about four misoprostol pills a day or two later. The mifepristone destabilize the connecting tissue between a baby and the uterus, and the misoprostol causes the uterus to expel the baby (consciously, fatally, and prematurely by the mother and doctor). Now I added the information in the parentheses there at the end but isn't that essentially what this pill is doing, consciously ending the pregnancy fatally and prematurely? In the first iteration it wouldn't cause you to think any deeper, but the second may cause you to think why someone would want to initiate a premature fatality for the baby inside them? The next paragraph sheds some light on the why, but the convenience of abortion, and how our self-focus in general blinds morality, isn't the impetus of this random thought. Let's take this last section and see how it looks when move words around: Generally, surgical abortions completely remove an embryo or fetus and surrounding uterine tissue, but abortions done with pills may leave bits of placenta or other embryonic material. Generally, surgical abortions completely remove a baby and surrounding uterine tissue, but abortions done with pills may leave bits of placenta or other baby material. Same sick feeling down deep eh? I don't blame you. The notion of small and large baby parts being "littered" in a young woman, or in a trash can as is the case of surgical abortions, takes you somewhere very dark - yet this is exactly what is happening tens of thousands times a day across the world. Note also that since 1972, this practice has been protected by our government. This article isn't about political activism, but it does make you stop and think when you change that one word from "fetus" or "embryo" to "baby". These are strong arm tactics to instill a fearful emotional response Keith, it's not fair to take advantage of an emotional volatile girl that is considering an abortion. These aren't fear tactics, they are truth tactics. I don't know about fair, but you're damn well right I'm trying to instill an emotional response because damn the day a pregnancy simply becomes a process of "cellular development" instead of "baby growing". And damn the day a mother becomes a Petri dish instead of a…mother. If you're still reading this article, chances are you're on a side. By invoking the possibility that a baby outside the womb is categorically equal to a baby inside the womb, I have facilitated an emotional response and it proves you are a human being. By using such soulless terms as "embryo" and "fetus" writers know that we have no emotional attachment to them. You may believe it is unethical and wrong to elicit emotion when debating this topic but I would think it more nefarious and unethical to relegate pregnancy and abortion to merely "procedural". What a disservice and dishonor to thee most precious physical miracle that occurs in the human race. You may see what I'm saying and would agree with me if in fact the "it" growing inside mommy is in fact a baby and fully human. But there is no way to prove that though right, so I'll never convince people against thinking it's just a fetus or blob of cells? That is indeed true, but though the lack of empirical proof that it's a baby would seem damning, it's actually one of its greatest strengths. Because not being able to empirically prove it's a human baby means that you cannot empirically prove it's something else. This ambiguity, or uncertainty, leads to the logical conclusion that it's either a human baby or it isn't, but that we can't know aside from personal feeling. Considering the aforementioned emotional and conscience-related responses that result from reading it to be a baby, and considering the fact that we can't be sure on an empirical level, could you now ever take the chance that it isn't a baby; a human life that happens to be composed of embryonic cells instead of embryonic cells that happen to turn into a human one day but not today? Could you take that chance without truly knowing? Now you realize the how influential the media can be. How different would the abortion debate if the word "baby" was used instead of "fetus"? What if even they used "we're not sure what it is"? I think that'd get a lot more people to think about abortion, and its consequences, before they take a position. What if all the millions of babies aborted were fully human? Not an easy question to ask yourself... I still think Ronald Reagan (political faction aside) put the logic best during his State of the Union address in '84, "I know this issue is very controversial. But unless and until it can be proven that an unborn child is not a human being, can we justify assuming without proof that it isn't? No one has yet offered such proof. Indeed, all the evidence is to the contrary. We should rise above bitterness and reproach. And if Americans could come together in a spirit of understanding and helping, then we could find positive solutions to the tragedy of abortion." I think pro-choice persons often get falsely vilified for being "pro-abortion". In the same way I think pro-life persons often get falsely vilified as "pro-male domination/female subordination". Neither of these are true, so I don't think the two sides are as polarized as people think. That said, I think Reagan's exhortation to come together in a spirit of understanding and helping is the key to finding positive solutions to the tragedy of abortion. I think the first step is deciding in our hearts when the life of a human being begins, and even if we're not sure, are we willing to take the chance of thinking it doesn't begin at conception? Because much blood has been spilled already, and no one can refute that… |
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