Hiding Behind Euphemisms and Terms
The response to my thank you note to Greta Van Susteren has been a fascinating study in the comfort people take behind euphemisms and terms.”Outrageous,” “graphic,” “over the top,” and “hyperbolic” have all been used today to describe my thank you. Why? Because instead of using the word “abortion” to describe that which Wendy Davis supports, I actually explained what that procedure is.Good luck trying to understand from Planned Parenthood. Just read this:
There is more than one kind of in-clinic abortion procedure. The most common is called aspiration. It is also known as vacuum aspiration. Aspiration is usually used up to 16 weeks after a woman’s last period.D&E — dilation and evacuation — is another kind of in-clinic abortion. D&E is usually performed later than 16 weeks after a woman’s last period.
Hmmmmm . . . vacuum aspiration. What exactly is that? Well
This is the most common method of abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. General or local anaesthesia is given to the mother and her cervix is quickly dilated. A suction curette (hollow tube with a knife-edged tip) is inserted into the womb. This instrument is then connected to a vacuum machine by a transparent tube. The vacuum suction, 29 times more powerful than a household vacuum cleaner, tears the fetus and placenta into small pieces which are sucked through the tube into a bottle and discarded.
And what about “dilation and evacuation”?
This method is used up to 18 weeks’ gestation. Instead of the loop-shaped knife used in D&C abortions, a pair of forceps is inserted into the womb to grasp part of the fetus. The teeth of the forceps twist and tear the bones of the unborn child. This process is repeated until the fetus is totally dismembered and removed. Usually the spine must be snapped and the skull crushed in order to remove them.
When it is Michael Vick and dog fighting and breeding, the world is outraged and horrified by the awful nature of what he did. The press reported on the graphic nature of what he did to the dogs. But with killing kids, the press hides behind the word “abortion.”None of us like to see pictures of it. I was horrified one day, taking my child home, that abortion protesters were on the street corner with graphic displays of children unstitched by men from their mothers’ wombs. It was a disgusting sight and to this day I bitterly resent my children having to see those pictures — thrusting them cruelly into questions and a world I, as their parent, did not think them ready to deal with.But in these discussions, here and elsewhere, among grown ups, perhaps it is time we stop with the euphemisms and terms. It is killing kids. You may think there is a legal right to do so. You may defend a woman’s legal right to kill her child. But let’s not dance around what is happening. A living human being is being physically ripped apart — some times even after the child has developed the nervous pathway to feel her arms being ripped from her and her head being penetrated.It may be graphic. It may be outrageous. But it is what abortion rights activists support. They claim they only support the right to choose the option — but that option is still tearing a human being into bits and pieces. I’m coming to the position that we should not let them hide behind the cover of euphemism.That so many have acted so uncomfortably to my description of what it is Wendy Davis has based her whole rise to fame defending suggests we should use the full and graphic truth more often.