A letter in the Independent on January 24 titled
"Edge of precipice" looks at the importance of language in the abortion debate and how it has been abused to further the abortion agenda.
Language is all important in the current debate about
abortion. Subtle changes in the use of terms can gradually help to bring about
and even justify ways of looking at ethical issues that previously were not
acceptable.
A famous example of this comes from an editorial in the
September issue of 'California Medicine', 1970, which referred to changing
attitudes to abortion in western society. It refers, in the following excerpt,
to the need for a linguistic strategy if abortion was to gain acceptance.
"Since the old ethic has not yet been fully displaced,
it has been necessary to separate the idea of abortion from the idea of
killing, which continues to be socially abhorrent.
"The result has been a curious avoidance of the
scientific fact, which everyone really knows, that human life begins at
conception and is continuous, whether intra- or extra-uterine, until death.
"The very considerable semantic gymnastics that are
required to rationalise abortion as anything but taking a human life would be
ludicrous if they were not often put forth under socially impeccable
auspices."
It is suggested that this schizophrenic sort of subterfuge
is necessary because while a new ethic is being accepted the old one has not
yet been rejected.
This is a stark reminder to all of us not to allow slippage
in our use of language, which could entail radically transforming our society
and the state to facilitate the taking of life in an unjustifiable manner.
We can see how far the US has moved down that road of
destruction since that editorial of 1970.
We are on the edge of that precipice just now.
Seamus Grimes
Tirellan Heights, Galway
A letter in the Independent on January 24 titled
"Edge of precipice" looks at the importance of language in the abortion debate and how it has been abused to further the abortion agenda.
