Contemporary sloganeering, coupled with biased reporting, is a sure recipe for misinformation. Recent writings prove the point far better than I ever could on my own.
Take, for example, this National Public Radio headline: "Traffic accidents top cause of fatal child injuries."
This article is not about scenes outside abortion mills where clients are trampling each other in order to be first in line to kill their baby. The reporter is writing about actual traffic in the streets and the accidents that occur when vehicles collide with each other or immovable objects such as telephone poles. The report tells us, "Nearly a million children worldwide die every year as a result of unintentional injuries, and the biggest killer is traffic accidents, according to a report from the World Health Organization."
This report is erroneous. The number of children murdered by abortion worldwide every year numbers more than 50 million! This fact should be, overwhelmingly, the top news story worldwide. But lest we forget, in order for that to occur, reporters would have to recognize preborn children as persons rather than political issues or blobs of cells.
This refusal to face reality is revealed repeatedly in the language of abortion proponents. When the New York Times published letters responding to Ross Douthat's commentary, "Abortion Politics Didn't Doom the G.O.P.", we glimpsed how our foes cower behind cute phrases and idiotic words.
One Connecticut woman writes, "The leaders of the anti-choice movement need to understand that pro-choice Republicans are not absolutists."
Oh my, what a grand buffet of slippery slogans in that line! All of a sudden, defenders of human beings, each of whom should have an equal right to life outside the womb as well as inside are labeled "anti-choice." The reason is clear: Those who are "pro-choice" are the good guys, even though the choice to which she refers is the decision to execute an innocent human being simply because of where he resides at the moment.
Such nonsense should make Americans think twice about how the pro-aborts' twisted logic works, but first they would have to think. That seems to be an entirely different problem for far too many, even among our friends. But I digress.
The lady from the Constitution State tells the readers that pro-abort Republicans "are not absolutists," and she support her thesis by citing polls that, she claims, show that most Republicans and pro-life voters believe "the issue of abortion should be decided by a woman, not the government." In other words, the fate of an innocent person should be left in the hands of his mother, not the law of the land.
That might be true in a sane society, but in America, there is now a ravenous desire to kill that which is inconvenient, so her statement flies in the face of what we know is true.
In the same letters column, another commentator writes, "An unexpected, unwanted pregnancy can be mentally, emotionally and physically devastating for a woman. It can be a financial catastrophe (more than half of all teenage mothers end up on welfare) and can result in a woman's death. Exactly which part of this agonizing ordeal is Ross Douthat willing to compromise on?"
Notice the emphasis on the negative once again. But this time it is the child himself who becomes unacceptable. Any time I see the phrase "unplanned" or "unwanted" pregnancy, I immediately wonder quite the opposite of what this New Yorker is telling her fellow readers. I wonder why the supporters of abortion are so fearful of using the accurate terms that apply to pregnancy, such as "child in the womb," "baby" and "mother." It would seem that those words stir feelings of indignation and rage in such people, rather than helping them see, through the eyes of reason, that their perspective is in error. Funny how such simple truths can make a pro-abort come unglued, isn't it?
But you cannot deceive the public if you choose your words honestly, so that accurate visions of motherhood and children come into focus. Why else would someone describe a little baby as a "financial catastrophe" or his mere existence as a possible threat to life and limb?
Fear tactics are the framework in which pro-abortion logic works best. This is why a mother who is experiencing pregnancy at a time in her life when she least expected it is frequently described as a woman with a crisis pregnancy, rather than an expectant mother in need of support – be it emotional, spiritual, financial or all three. Why muddy the waters with reality?
But the most outrageous line in Ms. Herzmansky's letter, hands-down, is this one: "President-elect Barack Obama and the Supreme Court must continue to protect the lives of women by maintaining pro-choice laws. On this there can be no compromise."
Never mind what might happen if the president-elect and the Supreme Court justices chose to protect every single human being's life! Don't think about the possibility of these political powers finally telling parents that it is their moral obligation to accept responsibility for their decision to become sexually involved and choose life for the children they have indeed procreated themselves. God forbid that the nation would witness return to civility after the barbarism of the past 35 years.
"No compromise," says she. Well on that, we agree. The only difference is that we will never compromise the truth; we will never settle for death, and we will never manipulate words, scientific facts or Christian principles to achieve victory.
American Life League exists specifically to insist on personhood, and that is why we will not condone, agree to or otherwise buy into any proposal that omits even one baby from the total protection that each and every human being deserves.
No compromise, no apologies and, most importantly, no junk jargon. We speak the truth, and sooner or later, the people will listen.