I am confused.
A story that is making big headlines in the US has confounded me. It is the story of a court case in which a doctor is on trial because his clinic performed a "live birth abortion". http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/02/06/florida.abortion/index.html .
What in the world is a live birth abortion? As I read the articles it becomes clear that a woman went into an abortion clinic to have an abortion (at 23 weeks) and while there her baby was born. After the baby was born the staff place the baby in a plastic bag, while it was moving, while it was breathing, while it was alive, where it slowly and no doubt agonizingly suffocated to death. The official autopsy report confirms this.
So – why in the world is this being refered to as a "live birth abortion" when it seems clear that it was murder – even by our culture’s crazy standards? In some ways my cynical nature suspects this to be a case of doublespeak. Doublespeak, according to Wikipedia "(sometimes called doubletalk) is language constructed to disguise or distort its actual meaning, often resulting in a communication bypass."
I mean if we can call the killing of a living human being, outside of the womb, a "live birth abortion" we may as well erase the word ‘murder’ from our vocabulary and use the word ‘live abortion’ for the killing of any human being. Prisoners facing the death penalty would not be executed – they would simply face ‘penal abortion’.
I find it disturbing and interesting that we cannot bring ourselves to use the word murder, even when it is obvious, because murder is loaded with ethical and moral meaning and content that makes us uncomfortable.
How sad. How cowardly.
Harnessing Chaos 
People who support the idea of abortion work off of the notion that you can distinguish a foetus from a baby. That there is a significant difference between the two -but saying that is like saying you can pinpoint the moment in time when a child becomes an adult. We draw lines in the sand to say that we\’re adult when we\’re 18 – knowing that some 16 year olds are more adult than some 20 year olds. We draw the line saying that a foetus is a baby when it is outside its mother\’s body, but isn\’t it the same human both inside and out? These arbitrary lines can cloud our judgement. I\’m sure the people working there convinced themselves that they were just disposing of another foetus. If so, they\’re really just agreeing that there is no distinction between those born and those unborn. It is very sad.
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