THE IMPLICATIONS OF REVISING THE TERMINOLOGY OF PREGNANCY LOSS

got posted, so I am reposting it here:

A contrary perspective here is that teaching people that words often have different meanings--some of which are morally significant, and others not--would be more beneficial than a common suggestion to seek euphemisms for words and concepts for which euphemisms aren't needed.

"Current clinical practice avoids . . the morally and emotionally charged territories of “life” and “death”."

Yes, abortion involves the (biological) death of embryos and fetuses. Is causing death always wrong? No, not at all: people can think about obvious cases where that's so.

"Yeah, but it's the death of HUMANS!!" Uh, no: it's the death of beings that are *biologically* human, but at least early fetuses aren't "humans" *like us*, or human persons (conscious, feeling beings, etc.).

So perhaps teaching people a bit of critical thinking here would do more good than trying to evade obvious explanations of what's going on.

"When the term “death” is used in the context of pregnancy and pregnancy loss, there exists the risk of this shift in language potentially being used to strengthen the arguments of those who oppose abortion, providing them with the linguistic tools that frame the debate in terms of life and death from the earliest stages of pregnancy."

And when accurate scientific and common-sense descriptions are avoided, that makes the people who advocate for these language revisions look evasive and foolish. That doesn't help their cause.

Here's a free introductory book (and other materials) on these topics: Thinking Critically About Abortion at www.AbortionArguments.com