Posted on 07/03/2013 8:00:23 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
I often get irked by those who fail to understand that the first step in winning most political arguments is to engage the target audience's emotions. In the political arena the best reasoned argument becomes moot if no one is listening. Over at Ace of Spades Gabriel Malor does a nice job explaining why the clinical language needed in late term abortion legislation could be a loser in the overall political and media debate because it fails to engage the imagination.
My advice to folks talking about this is to use "six months" instead of "20 weeks." Emphasize the familiar: we all know what six months of pregnancy looks like. Banning abortions after 20 weeks means banning abortions inside the sixth month. 20 weeks is almost clinical and nobody really thinks in those terms, anyway.
We all have an instinctive feel for two weeks' time, four weeks' time, maybe even six weeks' time. But after that, most people think in terms of months. And, as I said, everybody knows what six months of pregnancy looks like.
There's no way to make the usual intellectual dodge -- "it's just a clump of cells" work at that point. Not even close.
By six months, the baby and mother, if they're receiving standard care, will have had at least two ultrasounds. The baby's organs and limbs will have been inspected. The little sucker will have been moving about for a while.
The mother, if she's not a monster, (and hopefully the father, too) will have listened to the heartbeat. All that comes before the Wendy Davises of the world say that you should be able to kill that baby for any reason or no reason at all.
I get that for medical and legal purposes, using 20 weeks is necessary.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
This is good advice for any political argument — distill your language to the simplist.
I am glad to see that this columnist FINALLY put it into very sad terms: caring more for the famous pink sneakers...than a 6 month old fetus!!! Wendy should be ashamed and I wonder how she will feel when her daughter chooses to abort versus having a grandchld (should that happen)!! She’s just pontificating with the youth and liberals around her.
As my husband said at a dinner party..be careful not to be too open minded as your brains might fall out!
It isn't pro-choice, but baby killing...
why can't we use language to our advantage too?
insensitive???
tell that to the 20 week old....in womb.
20 weeks is 4 1/2 months. Abortion after 6 months generally is banned, with the wide maternal health exception.
A baby at 20 weeks looks like a baby at 26 weeks, except smaller and scrawnier - the mother’s uterus reaches the height of her navel, and the baby would fit curled on her palm.
You might not have meant to be misleading, but your phrase "...generally banned" IS misleading.
Using your "health" exception, babies up to 40 weeks gestation (full term) are destroyed by abortionists who, on camera, have laughingly described how they will interpret (i.e. fabricate) that "health" exception in any way they please.
This happens all over America, every day, in "clinics" aka abortuaries like Gosnell's -- which are de facto legal because state gov'ts willingly look the other way.
And while the abortion industry claims that "only" about 500 post-20 week abortions are performed, nationwide, per year, that claim was long ago been exposed as a lie.
in 1997, reporter and journalism professor Ruth Padawer found that one single abortion clinic in Englewood, New Jersey --alone-- blithely admitted to performing over 1500 post-20 week abortions per year.
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