Catherine Palmer is working on a project stemming from her article posted below. We’re looking to catalog all of the pro-choice euphemisms in existence, and ask that you write in whatever ones you know.
For example: Product of conceptus (for embryo/fetus).
Please pick your brains, your pro-life friends’ brains, and write in whatever you have. Thanks so much.
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Terminate a pregnancy. (They ALL terminate, most at around nine months.)
Interrupt a pregnancy. (As if you can continue it afterward!)
The uterine contents. (Contents: One unborn baby plus placenta and amniotic fluid.)
The pregnancy tissue. (Why not call the woman “the ambulatory tissue”?)
Between a woman and her doctor (As if he’s her physician in the first place, and as if there’s really any medical justification, and as if she even meets the guy before he walks into the room where she’s already in the stirrups)
Reproductive rights (that somehow magically don’t come into play until AFTER you’ve reproduced and you’re trying to erase the evidence)
Reproductive health care (Which makes as much sense as calling the gas chamber a “respiratory care facility)
Clinic (most of them are private doctors’ offices, not clinics, aside from the fact that a CLINIC implies treatment and healing)
Wow. Thanks Christina!
How about “Just a blob of cells” or “the foreign uterine matter.”
Oh, and “Emergency contraception” which translates to “preventing” pregnancy after the fact.
I honestly know lots of post-abortive women who always called it a “baby.”
I’ve always hated the medically correct but emotionally problematic term “spontaneous abortion” to describe a miscarriage, give the more common meaning of the word “abortion.”
The product of my own miscarriage went from “baby” to “medical waste” pretty quickly.
Oh, here’s one: IUD = “baby bug-zapper.”
Hope this helps –
Access to reproductive healthcare
Family planning
Birth control
The Pill
Induced miscarriage
Restoring the menses
Taking care of the problem
Save the life of the mother
Reproductive freedom
medically appropriate abortion
inconsistent with life
“Saving the life of the mother” is a euphemism?
“Evacuate the Contents of the uterus” = murder the unborn baby
“potential human being” = huh? What else is he/she potentially?
“A woman’s choice whether or not to carry the pregnancy” (or “continue the pregnancy”)
“Potential life”
“clean out the remains” or “dispose of the remains”
“Hooverized” California High School Expression for an abortion
“A woman has the right to choose what she wants to do with her body” (but only if it’s her baby’s body i.e. she DOESN’T have the right to take drugs or several other things… that makes sense… NOT)
“My body, my baby, my choice” -> planned parenthood slogan I saw on a car – what’s wrong with this? If a woman says “my baby” she’s (1) acknowledged her baby is human and hers and (2) she’s bonded with her baby already… like duh…
“I’m personally against abortion but I respect a woman’s right” (maybe many women would rather NOT have that choice – studies seem to suggest this i.e. that 60 percent or greater are coerced into abortion by irresponsible fathers or family members).
or “I’m personally against abortion but I feel I cannot force my morals on other people” (what about forcing your morals on a helpless unborn child – that’s OK?) –> the cop-out used by some of the politicians.
How about calling someone who is pro-life “anti choice”? I tell them I’m all for choice but that choice should be made IN THE BEDROOM i.e. once the baby is in the womb, the choice has been made.
A woman who aborts is already a mother – she’s either the mother of a living or dead baby. Too many women find that out all too late. Hope this helps your project…
“Consent to sex is not consent to pregnancy” is a euphemism for “abortion is birth control.”
Pro-Choice – obviously
Culture of Liberty – this one is cropping up as a counter for the phrase “Culture of Life,” although it’s hardly common use now
Late-term abortion – better that than say “killing a child older than most premature babies”
it – this one is one I’ve noticed some pro-lifers using by accident; rather than refer to the unborn as a person, pro-choicers use “it,” to reduce them to a thing
reproductive health care
family planning
zygote/embryo/fetus – while these terms are technically accurate, pro-choicers frequently use them to imply “non-person human beings,” and when used that way, they qualify as euphemisms
Anti-Choice – a term that never fails to bring the lulz
potential _______ – the blank is usually filled in with “life” or “child”
extremists – usually means “anyone who disagrees with me” in the pro-choice parlance
…More later, if I think of them.
I consider ‘Mother-To-Be’ a euphemism. As I said over on Jill Stanek’s blog: If you’re THINKING about or TRYING TO become a mother, you’re a ‘Mother-To-Be’. If you’re pregnant, you’re already a MOTHER, your child is just not born yet. If you’re pregnant, you have a pre-born CHILD. If you have a child, that makes you a parent (be it mother OR father).
I also hate the term ‘spontaneous abortion’ for miscarriage. I have LOST (miscarried) four babies. They are my children. I did nothing to CAUSE them to die. I did everything I could to KEEP them safe inside me until they could be born, it just didn’t turn out that way. I didn’t purposely ABORT them..I wish they’d stop using the term ‘spontaneous abortion’.
L.
“Saving the life of the mother” is a euphemism?
Ha. I didn’t claim my list was perfect or that others would agree.
It’s a euphemism for abortion. As I see it, it’s a phrase most often relating to a mid to late-term abortion. The problem is that the intent of the procedure is killing the baby instead of preserving the mother’s life and the baby’s life until natural birth if possible.
Pamela, sorry for your losses — I’m actually not pro-life myself, but I hate the term “spontaneous abortion,” too, and I can only imagine how pro-life people feel when they hear it, especially in a time of loss.
L., many abortion advocates (Warren Hern springs to mind) insist that EVERY abortion “saves the life of the mother.” Hern uses it (as do others) with the justification that by CDC calculations, “abortion is safer than childbirth”, therefore EVERY abortion “prevents a possible childbirth death.”
More “feminist” minded prochoicers say that the woman’s lifestyle is as important as her life, and that by preserving her life’s trajectory, abortion is “saving her life”.
Sorry but instead of contributing another deceptive euphemism, her is a moniker that most accurately describes them….. “anti-human rights extremists”.
http://heyitsjustablogman.blogspot.com/2009/12/well-duh.html
“Lifesaving abortion”-oxymoron-someone dies in every abortion
Any of the bogus criteria Tiller used to justify murdering babies, such as carrying to term would cause the mother “emotional distress” or “financial hardship”-mother’s life wasn’t in danger, mother’s lifestyle was.
“Some women abort to care for their other children.” Riiight. “Mommy loved me so much, she killed my brother/sister.” That would inspire all kinds of confidence in a child, wouldn’t it?
“Reproductive Justice”- there is absolutely nothing just about abortion.
“Viability isn’t a fixed point in time”-another Tiller bumper sticker slogan-in that case killing him was just a really late term abortion, right?
“Bodily autonomy” this faux argument is actually a great argument against abortion-my autonomy ends where another’s begins-including my unborn child.
Probably the most inane lately are trite slogans about Christ being a proabort and lame attempts to use scripture to justify the indefensible (such as “I came not to condemn the world but to save it”) all these attempts fail when the proabort is asked if Christ would perform abortions or for specific scriptures in which he condones or commands abortion. Another recent example of this is trying to paint prolifers as ‘judgmental’ when proaborts are called out for violence against the unborn. Grasping at straw(men.)
“All prolfers are terrorists/rapists (insert insult of your choice here)” I personally have been called all these and more. I guess praying people are downright scary to the kingdom of darkness. Bring it on.
“Forced pregnancy is slavery/rape (add lame euphemism here, any will do)” unless a woman was raped, no one forced her to hop in the sack in the first place. Any way they can find to deflect responsibility for their own actions onto others, no matter how twisted, I have heard.
If you’re looking for the dumbest of the dumb and some serious mental gymnastics regarding proabort sloganeering, I recommened twitter. The #prochoice hashtag is a sea of stupid, and they are all reading from the same tired script and using the same Alinsky tactics over and over.
Have also seen longwinded diatribes from proaborts about how the prolife movement deningrates women, only to hear these same women refer to other women as incubators, breeders, baby machines, broodmares, hoes, sluts, vaginas etc. Mind boggling hypocrisy.
One more (LOL) have heard them try to make curretage after miscarriage on a par with abortion, as if abortion was a natural, unavoidable occurence with no intent involved. As a mother who lost a child at 7 months gestation, you can bet that one makes my blood boil.
Have heard the more hardcore use such compassionate phrases as “scrape it out” and “abort that shit” among others. There are demons among us, folks.
can’t forget this one: “prolife only cares about them until they’re born.” When asked what prochoice does to support women and their born children, you will be met with roaring silence…
Someone above said “it” was a pro-choice euphemism for the unborn child; in fact, it’s simply conventional English use even for young babies. There’s never been anything unusual about “The baby… It …”, even though it seems depersonalizing. Perhaps there’s something *wrong* with it, but that’s off topic for this thread.
I’m a “proabort” myself, bayouchild. But I’m genuinely sorry for your 7-month loss. Just because I don’t mourn my own unborn doesn’t mean that I believe everyone is just like me. There is no united “proabort” stance.
Catherine – you may want to categorize them into something like the following to make it easier to expand the list and cover the full spectrum of usage:
Procedural – Terms pro-aborts use mask over the reality of the procedure and science, specifically to dehumanize the child. Christina has an excellent start on that list. Examples:
- conception
- emergency contraceptive
- fetus
- products of conception
- tissue
- …
Political – deflective terms which are used to refocus the debate off the child and onto the woman and her own selfish desires. Examples:
- choice – pro-choice: – my body – my choice:
- rights – women’s rights …
- reproductive freedoms…
Propaganda – specific euphemisms meant to tarnish or undermine (cast as evil) pro-life efforts, or for that matter any one who disagrees with the pro-abortion position.
- anti-choice
- breeders
- etc.
Power – There’s a set of terms used specifically to recruit abortionists and frame them as beneficial to society. They are service-oriented (actually, power-oriented) terms, as opposed to the individual oriented political terms. You’ll find them bandied about in the medical schools and by those who plan on entering the industry, as well as major industry players:
- trust women
- providing a greater good
- disease of pregnancy
- planned parenthood
- etc.
Hope this helps – will work on a list as time permits.
These’s aren’t exactly euphamisms, but I can’t stand it when abortion advocates call abortion a “religious issue” or (even more nonsensically) a “settled issue.” Okay, NARAL, the issue has been settled– time to pack up and go home!
I meant “euphemisms,” of course. Jeez, I’m going senile at the age of 21!
Kelsey,
Obama is certainly the master of the social evolution mentality: abortion (and a whole host of other social issues) maintains an established social precedent that is, somehow, inviolable; and if we can’t get past it, we’re swimming upstream.
That’s why single-issue ethical battles don’t work: they fail to take account of the vast and widespread moral delusions that create these problems in the first place (i.e. that have generated a societal move toward utility and away from common goods). If we want to fight abortion, we have to fight all manner of societal ill that is in any way linked to that ideology. Otherwise, we give “social evolution” a dominant foothold.
This isn’t a euphemism, but what about the semantics of D & X or partial birth abortion? Whenever the subject of D & X procedure comes up, abortion advocates will ALWAYS argue that “partial birth abortion” is a “made-up term by anti-choice activists, not recognized by the scientific community.” And that, of course, is their entire response to pro-lifers outrage over D & X procedure. They completely ignore WHAT the procedure is and they “choose” to rather concentrate on the term we use and criticize that.
It’s similar to how if we use the term “baby” for the unborn, our entire argument is ignored and they choose to discuss how the “proper medical term” is fetus, not baby. Blow off the entire argument and concentrate on semantics. That seems to be the MO. I am convinced that an entire book can be written on the semantics of the pro-choice movement. Perhaps when I receive tenure…
When I had my miscarriage, the medical staff told me it was just “genetic material”. My doctor had told me that I was around 8 weeks pregnant but the miscarriage occurred around 10 weeks (and we were in the middle of relocating to another region of the country when it happened).
You might check over at http://www.rcrc.org for some ideas as well.
I remember the woman who tweeted her chemical abortion referred to her baby as a “parasite” (not a new term that I have heard).
The book Lime 5 by Mark Crutcher may be useful as well.
Kay,
I’m so sorry you lost a baby. A physician who refers to a baby as “genetic material” deserves a reprimand for sure. My doctor came in the morning after I delivered and said to me, “So, you’re not pregnant anymore!” He thought he was being funny, I guess, but I was terribly hurt at his insensitivity. It was a joyous, miraculous occasion, not the place or time for a medical diagnosis. Doctors can be so obtuse.
I checked out the link you posted and noticed that they have a document called “Your Denomination’s Position on Abortion”.
It would be good for these so-called “religious people” to read Dr. Nadal’s latest post, (How We Participate in the Sins of Another – Father John Corapi, June 5, 2010 by Gerard M. Nadal) to see the scandal they cause when they try to redefine moral behavior with their own opinions. That’s not what free will is about!
The same tweeter called her baby a “uterine squatter” and told her living child she was “sick with something called a fetus” (though she also claimed she was aborting a blastocyst).
“selective reduction” = murdering just one of a set of multiples
Oh, and let’s not forget the ever-popular “fertilized egg”. After fertilization, there is no egg, but a new unique organism. The term “fertilized egg” is as meaningful as “melted ice cube”; its only use is to make the zygote seem like the same thing as an egg, and we don’t value eggs.
I’ve seen the child called a “fungus” only acting on “animal instincts” (no joke!).
*Scratch that. Selective reduction is sparing at least one baby but killing the rest.