"What do you read, my Lord?"
--Polonius
"Words, words, words."
--Hamlet
Remember back in the day when Ted Kennedy and rambunctious company would take to the Senate floor and thunder away at those awful Republicans trying to take away Pregnancy Related Services? As if Ted Kennedy's more conservative colleagues (and who wasn't?) were trying to outlaw foot massages and late-night runs to the local Wal-Mart for ice cream. Everybody knew what the argument was about: abortion. But euphemism is the first option when you have to defend a concept that people wouldn't like if it was told plain.
It's like the word Choice in this decades-long debate. For who wants to be called pro-abortion? Better if that phrase was left behind in, say, 1986, and Choice told to stand in its place. Like a good soldier. What a pity that that perfectly conservative, pleasant word--choice--was co-opted by the raging left. Take your choice, chocolate or vanilla. Take your choice, McDonald's or the local mom-and-pop restaurant. Now the word Choice is another euphemism for death.
Yes, death. As we found out this past weekend on Meet The Press, when a presidential candidate named Hillary Clinton answered a few questions about abortion. Gosh, did her team think this debate was settled? Did they think just because Donald Trump said the law shouldn't be changed, that everybody else thought the same? The leading candidate on the Democratic side seemed taken aback, surprised really, to have to be answering these questions in 2016. As if those of us who tend to choose life will ever give up on the matter.
Yes, the former First Lady, United States senator and secretary of state seemed surprised by the question. She was full of uhs and ums, which isn't her style at all. If she's anything, she's polished. It comes from years of working in Washington. But she seemed to be searching for words when Chuck Todd put the question to her, and that's where she went off course.
When candidates search for words, sometimes they come up with the easiest ones. The ones that make the most sense. The ones that haven't been vetted by a committee of PR people. The words and phrases not yet hidden behind euphemism. We can see her handlers in the Green Room now, rubbing their temples and mumbling "noooo" at the monitor, when Candidate Clinton started answering, really answering, the question:
She started off aligning herself with Roe v. Wade, as always. With room for reasonable restrictions, of course. There are always shades of gray, right? It's not as if this is a debate about either (1) killing a human or (2) removing any other unwanted growth, like a skin tag. Her first response sounded as if somebody hit "play" on the recorder. "I've had the same position for many years," she said, and it sounded like it.
But then NBC's Chuck Todd had to get smart: "When or if does an unborn child have constitutional rights?"
Wow! An unborn child? This wasn't Fox News, it was Meet The Press. The question must've confused the candidate, for she answered:
"Well, under our laws, currently, uh, that is not something that exists. Uh, the uh, the, the unborn, ah, person, uh, doesn't have constitutional rights. Now that doesn't mean that we don't do everything we possibly can, ah, in the vast majority of, uh, instances to, you know, help a mother who is carrying a child, ah, and wants to make sure that child will be healthy, to have appropriate medical support. It doesn't mean that you don't do everything possible to try to, ah, fulfill your obligations, but it does not include sacrificing the woman's right to make decisions, and I think that's an important distinction that, under Roe v. Wade, uh, we've had enshrined under our Constitution."
Get her handlers some aspirin.
The unborn person, she says. Well, at last somebody on the port side of politics is making sense on this issue. No longer is the baby just a fetus, or foetus, or a prenatal development in an embryonic state. As this debate goes forward, let's use Hillary Clinton's definition of what it's about: an unborn person.
And that unborn person--that child--has a mother, as Hillary Clinton notices, and says above. So now we can talk about mothers and children, both of whom need appropriate medical support. Instead of just talking about women and privacy. And ignoring that other human in the equation.
Also, she says the rest of us have obligations to that child. Agreed!
Gosh, this is getting easy. And it will when people talk plain. Even by accident. Like the man said, language doesn't just convey thought, it shapes thought.
As much as we appreciate Hillary Clinton's answer, honesty and oversight, the most important battles in this debate will not be fought on stage between two candidates in the fall. Or by a new president next January. Nor will it be fought by congressmen or senators or even Supreme Court justices. (Although court battles are important, all the more reason to be smart with our votes this year.)
No, the most important battle in the ongoing--seemingly always-going--debate over abortion will be fought in the minds of men and women across the country. There the War on Children will be fought and won, one way or the other. And the best thing some of us can think of to make sure the right side wins is for everybody to understand what exactly is happening in abortion clinics. Unborn people are being killed.
We thank Hillary Clinton for making at least that much clear over the weekend. At last.
Editorial on 04/06/2016