Lethal language

Speaking of bioethics specialist Nancy Valko (bottom of post below), and of the need to be well informed of complex life issues and well aware of the linguistic gymnastics activists use to push an agenda of death….here’s a good article just out in the current issue of Voices. (Full disclosure-I have a piece there as well.)

Last year, I attended a lovely wedding where the bridesmaids wore an unusual shade of dark brown. Many people were perplexed by the color choice but one of the bridesmaids solved the mystery with one word: chocolate. Everyone smiled and nodded.

This is a rather benign example of the power of words to change perceptions. In ethics, however, such semantics are often employed for a more disturbing purpose — to disguise reality by changing words in order to define the debate.

Here are some examples.

Blastocyst or Preembryo vs. Embryo

Creative semantics is particularly obvious in the debate over government funding of embryonic stem cell research. While the term embryo does not evoke quite the same emotions as the term baby, embryo at least does recognize a unique human entity in the eyes of probably most people. The terms blastocyst or preembryo, however, connote more of an unformed mass of cells.

Ironically, the term preembryo (also sometimes called proembryo) was originally created “with the development of in vitro fertilization (IVF) to describe egg cells (ova) that have been fertilized but not yet implanted into a uterus”. The problem with calling IVF embryos embryos became clear when couples started custody battles over their own frozen embryos. Since the Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) had redefined the beginning of life from actual conception to implantation of the fertilized egg (embryo) back in the 1960s, this left the poor embryo in a virtual no man’s land, according to some ethicists. Renaming the embryo a preembryo or blastocyst for the first 14 days after conception or until implantation in the uterus gave both embryonic stem cell research and IVF supporters a mechanism for drawing an arbitrary ethical line on the scale of human personhood. According to this theory, the blastocyst or preembryo could then be denied even the minimal ethical respect given to embryos.

Of course, these terms also serve to confuse the average person about the reality of the newly conceived human being, which, unfortunately, is a tremendous political bonus to both the embryonic stem cell research and IVF supporters.

Artificial Nutrition and Hydration vs. Food and Water

Before he died, I had a chance to speak personally with the late Dr. Ron Cranford at a pediatrics conference in St. Louis in 1994. Dr. Cranford is the infamous neurologist used in such high profile “right to die” cases such as Nancy Cruzan’s and Terri Schiavo’s.

Dr. Cranford had just finished one of his presentations about withdrawing food and water from so-called “vegetative state” patients and he particularly emphasized the term “artificial nutrition and hydration”.

I asked him to first explain how water was artificial and then to comment on tube feedings using regular, pureed food. He stammered a bit for a while but ultimately admitted that is was a bit misleading to describe food and water supplied through a feeding tube as “artificial”.

Then, he went to talk to the media and, of course, once again used the phrase “artificial nutrition and hydration”.

I’ve spoken to groups many times about this issue and I often hear from people who, in their words, don’t want to be “artificially kept alive”. But I have yet to hear anyone willing to give up their safe, processed water or other food items. Only the argument itself is actually artificial.

This article is a must-read. What you don’t know can kill you. Though, the people responsible would probably call it something fuzzier.