The Language of Murder

  And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;

Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:

Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

Romans 1:28-32

For this, my very first post in the ‘Abolitionist’ section of my substack, I think it is important to lay the groundwork of my position, and specifically how my position differs from so many of my brethren on all sides of the aisles. (There being more than one aisle). I believe that one of the most important battlegrounds we need to fight on is the issue of… language.

Not ‘language’ as in  English or French, I’m good with all of those, but ‘language’ as in ‘what words do we use to describe what is going on?’ Specifically, I wish to address the word ‘abortion’.

Abortion is a bad word to use in our current debate for several reasons. It both obfuscates and equivocates, and both of those are bad things for a word to do. In order to communicate clearly, we need to tie our words down and get them to do our will. Unclear words do not lead to clear communication. They are not the only thing that can unclarify our communication, but they are a big one. Or are big ones. Hmmm.

Equivocates

First of all, let’s address the issue of ‘equivocation’. That is when a word means two different things, and it isn’t clear in our communication which one is meant. Or, worse (and more common) when we mean one thing, but we want the reader to hear a different thing. The English reader will hear one thing when we say ‘boot’, and the American reader will hear another. And it’s important if we say ‘there is a snake in the boot’ whether we are talking about the back of the car or the thing you wear on your feet.

The word ‘abortion’ meant “The natural process by which a baby dies or has some difficulty on its own in the womb, and the woman’s body, as a result, expels it.” Or, as Webster’s 1828 puts it:

ABOR'TION, noun [Latin abortio, a miscarriage; usually deduced from ab and orior.]

1. The act of miscarrying, or producing young before the natural time, or before the fetus is perfectly formed.

2. In a figurative sense, any fruit or produce that does not come to maturity, or any thing which fails in its progress, before it is matured or perfect, as a design or project.

3. The fetus brought forth before it is perfectly formed.

Now in our modern day we have come to use the term instead to mean the deliberate destruction of a child in the womb via drugs or some form of surgery. Or, as today’s Webster’s puts it:

1: the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus: such as

a: spontaneous expulsion of a human fetus during the first 12 weeks of gestation

b: induced expulsion of a human fetus

When we discuss ‘abortion’ in today’s political climate, we are almost excusively speaking of Mirriam-Webster’s 1b definition. Only occasionally will medical doctors speak of 1a. Indeed, we will almost always call 1a a ‘miscarriage’.

So we have taken a word that meant an unintentional, indeed highly undesired, act and turned it into an intentional act. We say ‘she had an abortion’, but ‘had’ is not a word we usually use for intentional acts. We use the active form, as in: ‘she drove’ or ‘she walked’, when we wish to emphasise the intentionality of the act.

Thus, the use of the word ‘equivocates’. It gives the impression of an unintentional act to what is a very intentional one.

Obfuscates

And to add insult to injury, it obfuscates. At the very least, it euphemises. When we say ‘she had an abortion,’ it isn’t at all clear exactly what she did. Indeed, one controversy has to do with anti-abortionists attempting to show what happens in an abortion and getting routinely drummed out of town. The euphemism is intentional. It is easier to show someone urinating than someone ‘getting an abortion’. And it isn’t just the part of the body. Open birth videos are easy to find, and, of course, sexual intercourse is all too easy to find, from porn to instructional videos to ‘wow, that’s how a baby comes to be’ documentaries.

Because in order for the majority of people to sustain the views they have on abortion, they can’t actually see an abortion. Indeed, most of them can’t actually see the developing child. To have an abortion at six weeks, it is not a good idea to see a picture of the baby at six weeks.

But the real way that the word ‘abortion’ obfuscates is that there is a much better, much clearer word: Murder. Child murder. Murdering a baby in the womb. Killing a child in what should have been the safest place on the planet. Murder most foul by her own mother.

Not murder? It is the deliberate destruction of an innocent human life. A procedure designed to produce her death. A procedure requested by her ‘mother’ and carried out by a ‘doctor’.

Child Murder

So, for this, my first post in the Abolitionist section of my substack, my point is that we need to consistently use the word ‘child murder’ when we speak about… child murder. The doctor, the mother, the nurse, the boyfriend, and the security guard- they are engaging in ‘child murder’. And for the most part, they know full well that that is what they are doing.

When we use the word ‘abortion’ to describe what is murder most foul, we equivocate and obfuscate the issues involved. A child was alive, a child is dead, and her mother caused her death intentionally.