Ask any abortion provider and they will claim pro-lifers use ‘inflammatory’ language and rhetoric in their activitism. Yet, this is a charge the pro-life community ought to embrace, for the most part. As we will see, it will come down to what gets labeled as “inflammatory.”
Effective language and rhetoric used by those supporting the Culture of Life is, of course, a matter of speaking the truth. When pro-lifers speak plainly, we very often prick the conscious of those who support abortion. When someone gets stung at the level of their conscience, naturally they get defensive and spout nonsensical rebuttals. This is to be expected, like the charge that pro-life people use ‘inflammatory’ language.
Here are five examples of so-called ‘inflammatory’ language and rhetoric anti-abortion folks use, according to pro-aborts.
1. REFERRING TO ABORTION AS ‘KILLING’
Abortionists and those who support abortion are rarely honest with themselves, let alone with you. They think they are clever in their vague descriptions of abortion. The deception they self-impose only twists their morality into knots.
Whereas pro-lifers call abortion ‘killing,’ and ‘murder,’ because that is, indeed, what it is, pro-abortion folks don’t want to face the reality. They cannot face the truth that the unborn entity inside the womb is both human and alive. To kill someone so defenseless and innocent remains unconscionable. Deep down in their human nature, everyone knows this. So they hide what they are doing by merely calling it something else.
The abortionist is not killing a human life, so much as he is just removing an ‘unwanted pregnancy.’ They aren’t advocating for the snuffing out of a life, but rather supporting a ‘voluntary miscarriage.’ They lie to themselves. They have high hopes that if they can convince you, then maybe they can convince themselves.
2. CALLING THE UNBORN ‘BABIES’
The pro-aborts dehumanize the unborn by the language and rhetoric they spout. To cover up the fact that they are killing babies, they use a term like ‘fetus’ to refer to the unborn child. The definition of a fetus is rather a mystery for the general populace and is not nearly as direct as the word ‘baby.’ In reality, ‘fetus’ means ‘little one’ in Greek. That’s all it means. The abortion lobby finds it easier to advocate for the intentional killing of a ‘fetus,’ than to support the murder of a ‘baby.’
They also dehumanize the unborn by using terms like ‘P.O.C.’ (meaning ‘product of conception’) in describing what an abortion seeks to remove. It is a lot easier to punch in at work at an abortion center or to rally around the death of ‘P.O.C.’s’ than it is around ‘babies.’ By calling the unborn ‘babies,’ those on the side of the Culture of Life speak a language the Culture of Death just assume be wiped away.
The slave trade was sustained for so long because many considered the slaves to be subhuman. Nazis carried out their murders of millions of Jews by dehumanizing their victims in their own minds. The same forces are at work here by the pro-aborts. They have categorically removed the humanity of the unborn, and thus made it more palpable to extinguish their existence.
3. CALLING A PREGNANT GIRL OR WOMAN A ‘MOTHER’
Popular culture, even among pro-lifers sadly, maintains that, until the baby is born, the parents do not in fact become parents to that child. In fact, though, every child has parents, regardless if they are born yet or are still in utero.
Pro-lifers actually aid the pro-abortion cause when they largely forget the humanity of the unborn. Those advocating for the Culture of Life need to call women ‘mothers’ as soon as they become pregnant. Fathers need to be recognized as such too, even if their child has yet to be born.
I have seen women get very upset with me outside abortion mills when I remind them they are mothers to the children they brought with them in utero that day to be aborted. Not all of them want to face the fact that they are mothers and thereby have a grave responsibility to the protection of their children—even those in the womb.
I would add too that mothers and fathers do not cease being those roles to children who have died. As a father to several miscarried babies, I can attest that those really were my children and I will forever be their father. Even if I did not get to hold them or kiss them, they remain my children.
Same for the parents to aborted babies. They did not stop being the parents to those babies once they had them murdered. Each of them only became the mother or the fathers to a deceased child.
4. CALLING ABORTION CLINICS ‘ABORTUARIES’
If you listened to the language and rhetoric of the abortion advocates, you might be led to believe abortion centers are places of women empowerment. They are supposedly places full of compassion. But have you ever stood outside an abortion center?
I have and I can tell you I have heard from abortion-minded folks who walked out that they remains pitiful, cold, heartless places. Rather than label them as ‘abortion centers,’ or ‘abortion clinics,’ I prefer the terms ‘abortuaries,’ or ‘abortion mills.’ These are real-life ‘death camps’ where innocent children are led to on a daily basis by the thousands to be dismembered, discarded, and disavowed.
5. LABELING THE LOSS OF THE UNBORN TO ABORTION A ‘GENOCIDE’
Keeping with that theme of death camps, it is not a stretch to refer to the slaughter of the unborn as a ‘holocaust’ or a ‘genocide.’ Remember, since the legalization of abortion for any reason for all nine months of pregnancy in 1973, over 70 million babies have lost their lives to surgical abortion. That is a mass murder on the largest of scale.
The unborn are being deliberately targeted and eliminated. Children are increasingly becoming more objectified and despised by our culture. The traditional family unit has virtually been swept into the dust pan of history. In short, our culture does not value children nor do much of anything to protect them.
Evil, spiritual forces have successfully brought this about for many decades. The mass media refuses to report or show pictures of the most common surgery in America. Many politicians, and likewise the populace as a whole, remain in the dark as to the pervasiveness of this tremendous scourge on our society. Pro-life people need to consistently remind everyone just how large a scale we are talking by using words like ‘holocaust’ and ‘genocide.’
In the end, if using these truthful statements earns the description of being ‘inflammatory’ or ‘divisive,’ then pro-lifers ought to embrace it. In fact, our culture needs more of such ‘inflammatory’ language to awaken its deadened conscience to the murder of over 3,500 unborn children a day. We need to win back the battle front of language.
YOUR TURN
Did I forget one? Is there another item of pro-life language and rhetoric we pro-lifers should emphasize?
Please leave your suggestions or any other comments below.
Also, a special thanks to pro-life hero, Joe Scheidler and his book below for giving me the material for this post. The idea originated with him.
