Banning euphemisms
It looks like Republicans are one their way towards banning a medical procedure that doesn’t exist :
- A House vote to ban a controversial abortion procedure assured that the restriction will become law soon and set the stage for a Supreme Court decision that could affect the future of abortion rights.
President Bush has urged Congress to prohibit what abortion foes call “partial birth” abortion, and the 282-139 House vote Wednesday affirmed that the bill would be on his desk, possibly within weeks.
. . .
Partial birth abortion, as defined by the bill, is a procedure in which the fetus is killed after the entire fetal head is outside the body of the mother or, in the case of breech presentation, “any part of the fetal trunk past the navel is outside the body of the mother.”It is commonly linked to a procedure medically known as dilation and extraction, in which the skull is punctured to bring about the death.
Abortion rights groups say the procedure is rare, occurring mostly in the latter stages of pregnancy when the fetus is discovered to be lethally malformed. They cite one study estimating that this type accounted for less than one-tenth of one percent of the 1.3 million abortions performed in 2000.
Did you catch the “as defined by the bill”? The reason they throw that in is because there is no medical procedure called “partial-birth abortion”. The procedure they’re referring to is commonly called “D&X” which means “dilation and extraction”. Got that? D&X is an “extraction”, not a “partial-birth”.
Rather than tell the truth, abortion opponents have dubbed D&X a “partial-birth abortion” in order to try to evoke mental images of a doctor waiting at the end of the birth canal with a saw, ready to chop a baby’s head off. The D&X procedure has as much to do with abortion as artificial insemination has to do with sex.
D&X “abortions” are not an elective procedures. They are done in rare cases where the baby is has a terminal (y’know, “is going to die anyways”) deformity and a natural childbirth will affect the health of the mother. Of course, if people really knew this, then “pro-lifers” wouldn’t have as much luck convincing the public that doctors are immoral monsters who love killing babies. In reality, this procedure has more to do with euthanasia than abortion.
Here’s the question I have about all this : why are D&X opponents allowed to rename the procedure before they seek a ban? Why can’t we make references to Bush’s tax cuts as “starve the poor handouts” or the war in Iraq as “Operation Kill Iraqi children” in congressional legislation?
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Comment by greg — March 1, 2004 @ 1:30 pm
well ducks, what do you call that thing inside a lady’s tummy when she is pregnant? Most people call it a ‘baby’. What do you call it when a baby comes out of a lady’s tummy? Very often it is called ‘birth.’ What happens when you take a pair of scissors and stick it into the back of a baby’s skull when the baby is only half-removed from the lady? I think “partial birth abortion’ is a fairly accurate description of the actual facts of the case. The word euphemism is greek meaning ‘good sound.’ Which sounds more like a pleasant, polite term for something horrific and unspeakable? “Dilation and Extraction”? Or “Partial Birth Abortion”? So, which is the euphemism again?
People who think ‘abortion rights’ are an unqualified good seem to have missed that day in school when they told everypone where babies come from.
Comment by Hilary — September 15, 2004 @ 11:01 am
Goddamn, did you even bother to read the post before leaving a comment? If so, maybe you should read this sentence again :
D&X is performed in rare cases in which the baby is gonna die anyways. The condescending tone of your comment belies the fact that you don’t seem to know what the fuck you’re talking about.
Comment by greg — September 15, 2004 @ 11:37 am
Nice language there…very convincing argument.
Hmmnn, “baby’s just going to die anyway…” so kill it before anyone sees it yah? How about you volunteer to drown the little defective, or vacuum out its brains, if you’re so keen…
What’s the word for killing babies after they’re born?
Oh yeah, ‘Infanticide.’
Got any other barbarisms you’d like to defend?
how about this old chestnut…
“It’s OK to use those Jews for medical experiments, we were just going to gas them anyway…”
Never would have thought debating with savages would be so much fun! Take the bait very nicely they do!
Comment by Hilary — September 16, 2004 @ 11:13 am
Keep using those Holocaust analogies. It just makes your side look crazier.
If you honestly can’t tell the difference between euthenasia and murder, then we shouldn’t even bother debating this issue. I’m not kidding.
Comment by greg — September 16, 2004 @ 11:19 am
I thought euthanasia was supposed to be used to mean causing the peaceful death of something that would otherwise die in agony. Same ‘eu-’ (good) as in euphemism. Lots of ‘eu-’s around here. Anyway, greg, what kind of good death is it, this “D&X” you’re advocating?
It really is a holocaust.
Comment by Andrew — September 16, 2004 @ 5:12 pm
Gosh, there sure is a lot of attention on this post I wrote more than a year ago. Since there still seems to be confusion on this issue, let me quote the American Medical Association :
That’s what I’m talking about.
So if we’re looking at a late-term pregnancy with a fetus that is “incompatible with life”, then the choice we’re looking at is this : Do you think it’s better for the baby to die quickly or slowly?
I’m not some bloodthirsty abortion supporter. In fact, I think there are some areas in which abortion could be safely regulated that would please the majority of Americans and ensure the rights of women to choose (ex. banning elective abortions past the point of viability, ensuring D&X procedures anesthetize the fetus, etc.)
Unfortunately, abortion opponents insist on vague language in abortion laws that would outlaw many types of abortions. They know these laws are gonna get thrown out of court, but they’d rather appease radicals like you guys than pass laws that will actually limit the number of abortions performed.
Because of shit like this, is it any wonder that pro-choicers are so reluctant to budge an inch? The slippery slope argument makes sense when your opponent is comparing your position with genocide.
Comment by greg — September 16, 2004 @ 5:39 pm
Ah yes, the ad hominem argument…
Well, putting aside for the moment whether I personally am ‘crazy’ (or did you mean ‘evil’?) for believing something different from you, perhaps we could examine the case on its merits.
Hmm…’my side’? I wonder which sides we are on. Either way, the ’side’ I am on has the guiding principle that you can’t kill people to solve your problems. What is the guiding principle of your ’side’?
I wonder if you object to the Nazi analogy because it is not apt, or because it makes your ’side’ look like slavering maniacs who like to murder tiny babies and old, sick and depressed people. I suppose I would object, even if I were a slavering, murderous maniac, to being called one.
One the other hand, let us examine whether the analogy really is apt. The Nazi’s are universally demonized, quite properly of course, for their philosophy that indeed you can kill people to solve your problems. Even problems you don’t really have, like needing a national scape goat such as the Jews to blame for all your real problems. In fact, the Nazi philosophy is grown off the same branch, it is called utilitarianism and its fundemental anthropological thesis is that there is no such thing as a person. Personhood does not exist as a moral concept. A person is that which you protect in law for its own sake, it has rights that are inherent and not relative to anything else. That’s why you can’t kill one. The Nazis didn’t believe in the existence of inherent personhood. Personhood was not something that came along with being human, but something taht was conferred by the State. In National Socialism, the State had absolute powers. Now I believe that the recently passed ‘unborn victims of violence’ act considers any child born alive, under any circumstances, to be a person and a citizen under the law.
I can see how that law would be embarrassing for abortionists, particularly of the later-term, D&X stripe. What if it doesn’t work? In the past a botched abortion, where the victim survives, was quickly resolved with a bucket of water. What an embarrassment for hospitals, to have to rush a child to emergency and give it all necessary care when five minutes before you had been bent on its early demise.
However, the Nazi’s kill-people-to-solve-your-problems philosophy was thoroughly tested on whom before they turned the gas jets on the Jews, Poles, communists and other political targets?
Ah, yes, on handicapped children. Remember, the killing-people policies were based not on political considerations, but on a set of philosophical ideas, collectively referred to now as eugenics. ‘Racial hygiene,’ another tender euphemism.
The T-4 programme developed the gas chamber technology in orphanages and asylums long before the shower rooms were constructed near Oswiecim. The regime killed children: handicapped, epileptics, orphans, children with Down’s syndrome. All those whom all eugenicists had been trying to exterminate more politely through sterilization programmes in North America for some little while. The goals are more or less the same: to rid oureselves of the Volksgemeinschaft, ‘life, unworthy of life.’
Perhaps you will say that euthanasia is justified because of suffering. I have several answers to this, but first I must ask if there is a measurable difference in outcome. If you say that you are killing someone because you can’t stand his suffering, that is euthanasia, and that’s good, right? And If you say that you are killing someone because you can’t stand his existence, that is murder and is bad. But forgive me for my obtuseness, but isn’t the outcome only different for the person doing the killing? The result for the person killed is the same yes? Isn’t th is merely a distinction without a difference? And isn’t it possible that the person whose suffering is actually being relieved is the person doing the killing? Isn’t a person who says, “I killed him because I couldn’t stand his suffering,” really talking about his own suffering being relieved?
Futhermore, I believe that a common justification for euthanasia is that the victim gives consent. Indeed, in those jurisdictions that allow “doctor assisted suicide” (speaking of euphemisms…), there are clauses in the laws that require consent on the part of the victim. May I ask, how is a child in the womb to give consent?
Ah, of course, the mother gives her consent on the child’s behalf to the medical procedure being performed. But we are back to intention again. What do we call a medical procedure performed on an unwilling patient the intention of which is to cause death?
If the principle that you can’t kill people to solve your problems is ‘crazy’ why do we need euphemisms at all? Why don’t we simply say we are killing a defective and ridding the world of unwanted people? I think the term ‘useless eaters’ is also apt. I mean, for example, the UNFPA has just issued another document telling us that we need more abortion in the third world because overpopulation is causing starvation and poverty. Isn’t it to all the ‘useless eaters’ that they object? The solution to poverty is obviously to kill the poor, yes?
There is an article, a book review really, of Henry Friedlander’s book, The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution that may help you to understand the aptness of my analogy.
http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/resource/REVIEWS/Friedlan.HTM
Comment by hilary — September 16, 2004 @ 6:12 pm
Ah, we’ve moved on from ad hominem to ‘argument from authority.’ Very well, but if we are to look to authority, I think it is wise to examine the biases and tendencies of the authority in question. When you quoted the AMA, did it occur to you to ask if their moral assesment, their tacit assumption that abortion was a moral act that could be carried out without qualms, was in fact the correct one? It is very trusting of you simply to assume that if the person speaking is wearing a white coat and drawing a government salary has the power to confer moral certitude on every human act.
“in keeping with the science and values of medicine,”
Which values are we referring to?
Not these ones I assume:
“I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice.
I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy. ”
The Hippocratic Oath was abandoned when abortion became a popular way of solving personal problems.
I’m sure it is very enlightened of the AMA to say that they ‘recommend’ that babies not be killed in the latter stages of pregnancy. But do you really think that it is an improvement to make sure a child does not feel his limbs being pulled off? Does anaesthetic make the act of killing a child morally defensible? Again, the result is the same. Is the only bad part about abortion the suffering of the child during the act, or is there a possibility that the problem is with the act itself? Is no other evil being done?
Should we trust the moral judgement, or even ‘recommendations’ of an organization that sees nothing essentially wrong with killing babies?
Comment by hilary — September 16, 2004 @ 6:36 pm