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THE PATRIOT PRESS
MARCHING TO THE DRUMBEAT OF FREEDOM
Feb. 15, 2009 Vol. 2 Issue 4
What You Say Matters
I was speaking with a woman who is dear to my heart recently and she informed me that her father-in-law, who at that time had been in the hospital for five weeks, was being moved into the Cardiac Care Unit. Bob was doing alright, but the day before he had suffered a little bit of a heart attack. My first response (please go back and read the sentence that said he was alright) was to laugh. Saying someone had a little bit of a heart attack is like saying someone is in a bit of a coma or has a touch of Ebola. She conceded the point with a laugh as well but then admitted she wasn’t sure how to tell her daughters. One could be informed that Bob had a minor myocardial infarction and was now in the CCU and, due to her background she would know exactly what that meant and the ramifications. Her other daughter could have a panic attack over a hangnail. The topic had to be danced around.
All of this is just a preamble into the fact that what we say and how we say it matters. Definitions are important. The audience also dictates how you should express yourself. Let’s look through some of the terminology surrounding the major issue of abortion.
Do you know the difference between an abortion and a medical termination of a pregnancy? Most people use the two terms interchangeably. However, the majority of women who have had a miscarriage have the diagnosis of ‘spontaneous abortion’ or ‘incomplete abortion’ in their medical records. The difference and the point were driven home over a family dinner when the topic came up. My sister, who had recently suffered her second miscarriage, was very upset by the use of the word ‘abortion.’ It wasn’t something she had caused or chosen. Since that day I have been very careful to distinguish between abortion and medical termination of a pregnancy. The choice of words matters to your audience.
The two main parties in the abortion argument are Pro Life and Pro Choice. If you are Pro-Life does that mean you are for life or anti-abortion? What I mean is, are the people who are for life concerned only with the time from conception through gestation and delivery? Or are they concerned with all life? Are they just as concerned with end of life care, DNRs, and passive suicide as they are with a fetus?
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