The Importance of Language, Part 2

A couple of days ago, I had a post about Michael Medved's column concerning the importance of language in framing a debate.

Whenever I want to point out liberal bias in the media, I usually use the abortion debate as a prime example. This is because the media's bias for abortion is so blatant as to be virtually indisputable. Nearly every term used by journalists sounds like it was written by NARAL or Planned Parenthood. From describing people as "for abortion rights" or "against abortion rights" to the constant description of any restrictions on abortion as being an "undue burden," journalists' bias is always on display.

One of the examples Medved didn't use was the description used almost uniformly by the Left when discussing the Gonzales v. Carhart case. The statute passed by Congress is the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. Yet you will frequently see pro-abortion sites refer to so-called "partial birth abortion" bans (see here, here, and here). But that isn't accurate. The legislation isn't "so-called," it is called the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act.

Reactions on lefty blogs after the Supreme Court's decision in Gonzales v. Carhart were uniform in the use of "so-called." Many commenters said that they wouldn't use the term because it wasn't the medical term for the procedure, that it was a euphemism contrived by pro-lifers.

But there are other euphemisms pro-abortion supporters like. Mollie at GetReligion has a post critiquing a Washington Post Magazine story on selective reduction.

Selective reduction is a euphemism for feticide (also known as embryoctony), that is the killing of fetuses or embryos in the womb.

According to Mollie, the story is remarkably honest, brutal and objective. But why the euphemism "selective reduction" if we are all into medical terminology these days? Could it be that feticide would turn off a lot of potential clients?

Cross-posted at Common Sense Political Thought.