Sometimes it’s in the way language is manipulated that meaning is made. It seems that one pro-abortion Texas legislator knows that and has moved to replace the words unborn child with fetus in state laws and informed consent information that women must receive prior to an abortion.
House Bill 708 is sponsored by Jessica Farrar (D-Houston) that Texas Right to Life is opposing. Calling the measure “dehumanizing,” Texas Right to Life said:
“’Fetus’ is a scientifically accurate term to describe preborn children at a certain stage of their development; the term is identical in meaning to ‘unborn child.’ But the abortion lobby and anti-Life legislators like Farrar have a vested interest in stopping any and all public acknowledgments of the humanity of the preborn. Therefore, they and the abortion lobby have insisted for decades that preborn children be referred to by the Latin, ‘fetus,’ instead of the word’s English translation. Likewise, the abortion industry refers to preborn children as “pregnancies,” “products of conception,” and “tissue,” an intentional effort to muddle the reality of children in utero. This semantics game is really the abortion lobby’s only remaining effective means of dehumanizing the preborn.”
The act is presented as “relating to the medical accuracy of informational materials given to a woman seeking an abortion.” What it does is cross out every instance of “unborn child” in the document and replace it with “fetus.” It looks more like a nitpicky copy editor who has preferences to use one word than it does any effective use of taxpayer money and legislators’ time to debate. Farrar’s efforts to dehumanize a preborn baby are aligned with the agenda of the abortion industry who tries to remove all humanity from the human inside the womb in order to manipulate women to kill their own children in the name of choice.
As Texas Right to Life points out:
“Fortunately, the majority of legislators see through the abortion lobby’s thinly-veiled attempt to regain the ground they have lost in the last few legislative sessions. Pro-Life lawmakers proudly displayed their own “former fetus” status in a highly-publicized solidarity campaign at the Capitol last month. Several legislators affixed former fetus signs on their doors and nameplates in the state capitol, demonstrating their commitment to protect unborn children and pregnant women. The majority of legislators are unlikely to support HB 708 since many of them voted for HB 15 in 2003, Texas law on informed consent before an abortion that included the materials that Farrar wants to change.”
Instead, HB 708 becomes another futile attempt to grasp at a straw by altering rhetoric. The thing is, it’s hard to change the truth of when life begins when a preborn baby’s heart is beating often before a woman knows she is pregnant. This is the truth that abortion advocates and profiteers don’t want people to know.
