[Abortion:] The euphemism imperative

Politico ^ | 5/2/13 | Rich Lowry

[rhema]

President Barack Obama was proud to become the first sitting president to address Planned Parenthood last Friday. But not proud enough to utter the word “abortion.”

The right to abortion is the sneakiest, most shame-faced of all American rights. Its most devoted supporters don’t dare speak its name. They hide behind evasion and euphemism and cant.

So Obama sang a hymn of praise to Planned Parenthood at the organization’s annual conference without mentioning what makes it so distinctive and controversial. He said it is a group women “count on for so many important services.” He said its core principle is “that women should be allowed to make their own decisions about their own health.” He excoriated opponents involved “in an orchestrated and historic effort to roll back basic rights when it comes to women’s health.”

[ . . . ]

Imagine if he had been similarly frank about the rest of Planned Parenthood’s work: “In 2011, according to your annual report, your clinics or affiliates performed 330,000 abortions. That’s a lot of abortion. Over 10 years more than 3 million. Thank you, Planned Parenthood. Think of all those women who wanted to terminate their pregnancies and you were there for them. That’s what you do. That’s what you are about. And that’s what this country is about.”

Before that crowd, he might have gotten rousing applause, but talking in such honest terms would have been a gross faux pas. Planned Parenthood’s image is dependent on averting eyes from its central purpose. According to a poll commissioned by the National Right to Life Committee, fifty-five percent of people don’t realize that Planned Parenthood performs abortions. In the past, Obama has said Planned Parenthood does mammograms, when it doesn’t.

[yldstrk]

murder is not health care

[Servant of the Cross]

murder is not health care

“There is no moral distinction between what Planned Parenthood does and the actions of Kermit Gosnell which are now on trial in Philadelphia”

“Planned Parenthood calls itself a Health Care Provider and includes the taking of the lives of innocent children in the womb as a service under what they euphemistically call reproductive services. There is nothing reproductive about abortion. The taking of innocent human life is not health care. It is also not a service to the child, the mother, the father or society. The President of the United States should not be raising money for them. Planned Parenthood must be defunded.”

[exDemMom]

The right to abortion is the sneakiest, most shame-faced of all American rights. Its most devoted supporters don’t dare speak its name. They hide behind evasion and euphemism and cant.

This gives me confidence that we are still making strides in educating people about what abortion truly is, and why Planned Parenthood really exists. When abortion promoters feel comfortable talking about what they really promote, and a majority of people are openly comfortable with the fact that abortion kills babies, then we can assume we've lost the argument.

The fact is, we are gaining against the abortion culture. They still lie to women to get them to "choose" abortion; the major news networks refuse to cover the butcher of Philadelphia while lying that Planned Parenthood provides medical care to poor women. All our side has to do is speak up with the truth every time the opportunity comes up.

[SandRat]

Planned Parenthood doesn’t do abortions, they do sequestrations.

[Venturer]

Ask my son’s ex wife what he Core principle of Planned Parenthood is.

She aborted his child so she could run off with an Obama-voter. May she rot in hell.

[informavoracious]

I get tired of the “it’s between a woman and her doctor” quote. Most abortion decisions are not made by a woman and her regular doctor or gynecologist. They are made by a woman who is heavily marketed to by an abortion saleswoman in a clinic and performed by a clinician who has never met her before.