Words

Remember this song from the Bee Gees about a man who relies on his words to win his sweetheart over?  Well this article has nothing to do about a sweetheart.  It deals instead with wording and spin.

We’re all familiar with advertising.  A winning ad campaign can send a company or a cause soaring into the stratosphere.  One would hope a solid strategy deals with facts, but that’s not always the case.  Let’s look at the adage; breakfast is the most important meal of the day.  How did that get started?  Some argue it was Dr. John Kellogg who wanted to sell his cereal product.  Others say it was the “father of public relations” Edward Bernays who was hired by a company to sell more bacon.  They as well as others convinced our parents that eating a hearty meal was essential to good health.  Is it fact or fiction?  That is still being debated today.

One of the best campaigns in recent times is the anti-smoking movement.  Everyone remembers the hundreds of people lying in the street, representing those who died from lung cancer.  To me, those were far more effective than the new campaign designed to shock you with cancer victims.

Where is this all leading?  If you read this blog on a regular basis you know where I stand on abortion. I watch the Walk for Life in Washington, DC every year and every year it grows in size—even last’s year’s blizzard couldn’t keep the people away.  This year, because I was off work, I watched the event more closely.  I read the banners held by the diverse groups who attended, naming their church, school, or organization.  Every one of them had the words Pro-Life on their signs and even their clothing.

There were, of course, some people protesting the Pro-Life March.  They made themselves heard and seen, as is their right.  It also gave me the opportunity to see what their signs read.  All had Pro-Choice, along with My Body—My choice.  It’s a women’s right to choose, etc.

Interesting.  Against abortion: Pro-Life.  For abortion: Pro-Choice.  Everyone is pro something.  This got me thinking about word association.  We’ve all played the game.  Someone shouts out a word and you have to say the first word that pops into your head.  Let’s play using the breakfast theme.  Bacon—eggs, morning—evening, hearty—light, toast—jam.  You get the idea.

Now let’s play using abortion as the theme.  Life—death, abortion—death, woman—person, baby—little person, choice—uh, um, property…cut?  OK.  If I say I’m against abortion I identify as pro-life but those who advocate for abortion should then be called pro-death or anti-life, but they’re not.  When I watched coverage of the March on local channels, at least those who covered it, people who are against abortion were labeled anti-abortion (negative) while those who advocate for abortion were identified as pro-choice (positive).  This is how wording can be manipulated to influence you.

There is no escaping it.  The opposite of life is death.  If a woman decides to have an abortion she is choosing the death of her unborn baby.  What “choice” does the baby have?  Couple all of this with the exposé on Planned Parenthood’s selling of baby organs to the highest bidder, and the latest outrage—rewarding their employees who perform the most abortions with pizza parties, along with suppressing stories of women and men who suffer psychologically throughout their lives, and tell me again where the choice is.  Why can’t mothers-to-be, be given the “choice” to undergo an ultrasound as opposed to them hearing the claim their child is nothing but a bunch of cells?  Isn’t that a choice?  If the baby could talk I’m betting he or she would be pro-life.

All this leads me back to the power of messaging.  The very successful advertising of the cigarette industry can work just as well for the Pro-Life movement, yet they don’t take advantage of it—and the media won’t help.  The same way young people dropped in Times Square representing people who died from lung cancer, young people can do the same, representing the millions who died at the hands of legal abortion.  Or how about those animal commercials that sneak up on you when you’re watching your favorite television show?  Just think if the sad talking lady was speaking about the millions and millions of innocent babies tortured and murdered every day at the hands of ruthless, money-making abortion mills.  They could show their torn, little bodies refrigerated until the evil biologics company purchases them for experiments; or worse, show them tossed into the garbage.  For just “insert the amount” a day you could save a child’s life… Yeah, you’ll never see that ad.

Being Pro-Life is not “just a religious thing”.  I saw several Atheists for Life signs in that March.  Where are the science and technology communities?   They should be front and center.  We’ve come a long way from “quickening” when doctors believed life began only when the mother could feel the baby kicking.  The ultrasound should have shut down the abortion industry—but it didn’t—probably because of the money it generates.  Just a couple of weeks ago, it was reported in an Atlantic Magazine article titled, “How Ultrasound Became Political” by Moira Weigel, stating there was “no heart to speak of” in a 6 week fetus.  They later removed it because it’s a lie.  It also states how couples view ultrasounds as their baby’s first picture.  Well isn’t it?  Most outrageous was the claim that “Ultrasound made it possible for the male doctor to evaluate the fetus without female interference.” Wow.  Pretty desperate.  Now do you see how words matter?

Late term abortion is flat out murder.  How can you say this is a blob of cells when babies the same age are alive and well?  There are nurses on record who say the child is born alive and they are forced to leave it alone in a closet to die.  Where will people draw the line?  Is infanticide the next step?  Will you be able to “abort” your child up to the age of 12?  If your teenager is getting to be a handful can you abort them too?  How about grandma?  Eugenics is making a comeback with some of the same people who call themselves Pro-Choice.

Technology makes stunning advances at lightning paced speed every day.  There is no doubt in my mind that someone will come up with an app to connect you with your growing baby in utero in real time.  I’m convinced that soon abortion will be exposed as one of the worst human atrocities of our time.  When that happens, no amount of words will ever be able to heal the wounds it afflicted, the losses suffered, or the violence and money it generated.