Quote of the Day 3-26-10
The folks at National Public Radio understand the power of words. Managing Editor David Sweeney announced yesterday that the station would no longer refer to people in the abortion debate as “pro-choice” and “pro-life.” Instead, the station will say “abortion rights advocates” and “abortion rights opponents,” according to a memo circulated to NPR staff.
In making this change, NPR is shifting the terms of the debate to make it more friendly to the pro-choice position.
Is NPR planning on referring to advocates of gun control as “gun rights opponents”?
~Newsbusters, March 25
Mar.26, 2010 9:11 am |
Quote of the Day |
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
The other side is feeling desperate to hold onto the minds and hearts of America. We must fight diligently to keep the rhetoric accurate. It’s an issue of life vs. death; there simply is no such thing as abortion “rights.” Killing a child is no one’s right or choice.
What NPR is doing is making their station sound a bit outdated. I wouldn’t make the change if I were them unless they are aiming for an older audience.
I thought that most stations already did this. Let’s be frank: pro-choicers have controlled this debate for a very long time now. They control the language of the debate- this is nothing new. The way to win the debate is to control the language- but you should at least be fair and refer to it as abortion rights against fetal rights.
Why not instead change to “right to life supporters” and “right to life opponents”? But that wouldn’t support NPR’s “side” would it?
Being a Catholic – Pro-life work runs the spectrum of human life – from conception to natural death. So people without a full-human view of life don’t recognize that true pro-lifers are against anything that destroys any human’s inherent dignity for just being human.
That dignity does not depend on function, size, location, degree of dependency or anything else. If a human has life, that life is due respect in any stage.
So technically, we support disability rights, elderly rights, oppose sexual usury and torture, oppose torture, slavery or undignified practices in any form. That is why this includes being against embryonic stem cell research and medical usury.
Being anti-abortion is only one item in the pro-life fight. Since abortion is the biggest atrocity and largest direct loss of life, that is where much of the work is now.
Media workers just want to look at this as one issue. But honestly – it’s a whole-life issue and that is why just calling pro-life advocates anti-abortion is not accurate or complete.
This is the other reason why we want health care – but ethical health care. This is why we want adult stem cell research (because it’s ethical). This is why many of us in the pro-life work want to help women with material goods, food, education and everything else – because it’s about LIFE — all of it.
They should say “supporters of unborn human rights” and “opponents of unborn human rights”.
There is no such thing as an abortion “right”. The media continue to believe in a mythical, logically impossible “right” to kill human beings.
We need to start arguing in favor of “unborn human rights” as opposed to abortion “rights”. We need to start trying to get the media to use this expression. I think it is more descriptive and precise than the more general expression “pro-life”.