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The semantics of abortion [1]

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Date: 2022-07-20

A conservative friend told me that if a procedure was done to end a tubal pregnancy, then that wasn’t really an abortion. But if there are to be any laws that use the word “abortion” then we need to look up what that word means. Here you go: “abortion”.

An abortion is the ending of a pregnancy that doesn’t result in the birth of an infant. Miscarriages ARE abortions. “Miscarriage” is just a polite way of saying “spontaneous abortion”. People use the polite term for the same reason they might say “expecting” instead of “pregnant” or “making love” instead of “having sex”.



Semantics matter very much when it comes to the law. So when you write a law that says “All abortions are illegal, no exceptions,” but you tell your constituents that you personally don’t consider ending a ectopic pregnancy to be an abortion, you have still effectively outlawed a lifesaving procedure. Courts, law enforcement, and lawyers have to go by the written text of the statute.



And if you were pregnant yesterday, but you’re not pregnant today, and you didn’t have a baby, then you had an abortion. You might have preferred to have a baby, but the fact that you WERE pregnant and suddenly AREN’T pregnant might be grounds for a criminal case. A court case can draaaag ooonnnn when it comes to determining level of intent. Did you drink when you were pregnant? Did you smoke? Did anyone smoke around you? Did you get enough folic acid? What kind of diet did you have since the last time you had your period?



So I call upon all Anglophones, regardless of their ideology, to start using the medically correct term for the termination of pregnancy: abortion. If you want to ban something, make it absolutely clear what you are banning. Or just let people choose what to do with their own bodies.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/7/20/2110918/-The-semantics-of-abortion

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