I have no issue with the word fetus/ human fetus, embryo. I understand that it is human, but i still believe a woman has the right to to terminate a pregnancy. The issue at hand that gets dismissed by pro-lifers is the rights of the woman to her body. Somehow pro-lifers think women lose their rights after becoming pregnant. They talk about the embryo, zygote, fetus, just existing somewhere floating in space without need a host body to live. Pro-lifers do not want equal rights for the embryo/fetus, they want "special rights" , meaning that the embryo/fetus has MORE rights than the woman to her body/uterus. Without a willing host and a uterus the embryo/fetus cannot live. So pro-lifers deflect the issue at hand which is who is the one providing the embryo/fetus for 9 months? women own their bodies and their uterus, women do NOT lose thier rights to their bodies because of pregnancy, and their are no "special rights" to use anyone's body to live. Any women here on commenting remember, pro-lifers want to take away your rights to refuse to gestate.
Good article and good comment by Guest, thanks. I would add one point which, if there are many minds like mine, could just be the most important point: For me, "fetus" is an ugly word. There are some biological terms that don't denote anything disgusting (as does, say, "pus"), yet whose mere sound I just find ugly. One such word, with a meaning similar to "fetus," is "larva." Some others: "follicle," "gizzard," "corpuscle," "plasma." For me, "embryo" is okay! I respond warmly to it. Don't ask me why the above terms sound ugly to me. Don't they to anyone else? In the case of "fetus," perhaps it reminds me of "fetid"? I use "unborn child" a lot. A pro-choicer can get out their dictionary and say that a "baby" is necessarily born, but they can't do that successfully with "child." The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines "child" as "an unborn or recently-born person." According to Gallup polls, between 1967 and 1972 there was a tremendous migration in the US from pro-life to pro-choice; there was also a deliberate push to institute a "lexicon of dehumanization." Just a coincidence? (See http://www.noterminationwithoutrepresentation.org/pro-life-expressing-the-highest-ideals-of-the-left/. Please search for "inner reasons". )
Fetus sounds pretty similar to a certain other word. There's a viral story about President Bush mixing them up in a speech. Completely fictional, fortunately. https://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/fetal.asp
Thanks. I don't know if an unconscious association with that word helps explain my aversion to "fetus," but the fact that some people make the association should be the last nail in the coffin for "fetus." We may or may not ban AR-15's, but we have to ban "fetus."
Great post. "Coccyx", "geriatric", "myocardial infarction", and "gravida" are all valid, scientific terms. But you'll never hear any of them outside of an anatomy class. In real life they're respectively known a tailbone, an elderly person, a heart attack, and a pregnant woman. Likewise the term "fetus" is rarely heard outside of scientific journals. The thing inside Kate Middleton's womb is known as the "royal baby", not the "royal fetus". When you go to a party to give gifts to a pregnant woman, it's called a "baby shower" (not a "fetus shower") and guests might ask how big her baby is (not how big her fetus is). Even abortion-friendly rags like Cosmo magazine discourage pregnant women from smoking in order to protect their unborn babies: https://twitchy.com/sd-3133/2015/03/24/not-just-a-clump-of-cells-why-is-cosmo-troubled-by-this-but-not-abortion-photo/ The only exception, of course, is when people try to rationalize killing the unborn. Then suddenly they become fetuses, embryos, zygotes, or zefs. Pro-life advocates should refuse to concede this ground. For a thought experiment imagine if a bunch of bureaucrats proposed compulsory euthanasia for all "geriatrics" (defined to be everyone over the age of 80), citing excessive burden on the healthcare system and social security payments. I would hope we would reject the other side's language, instead promoting terms like "senior citizens" and "elderly people". The use of a strictly scientific term that's foreign to most people is a deliberate way of removing humanity from the victims. It's important to pick our battles and avoid wasting time with semantic arguments, seeing as both time and patience are limited resources. But at the same time, we should not agree to use dehumanizing terminology.
Somehow pro-lifers think women lose their rights after becoming pregnant. They talk about the embryo, zygote, fetus, just existing somewhere floating in space without need a host body to live.
Pro-lifers do not want equal rights for the embryo/fetus, they want "special rights" , meaning that the embryo/fetus has MORE rights than the woman to her body/uterus.
Without a willing host and a uterus the embryo/fetus cannot live.
So pro-lifers deflect the issue at hand which is who is the one providing the embryo/fetus for 9 months? women own their bodies and their uterus, women do NOT lose thier rights to their bodies because of pregnancy, and their are no "special rights" to use anyone's body to live.
Any women here on commenting remember, pro-lifers want to take away your rights to refuse to gestate.
I would add one point which, if there are many minds like mine, could just be the most important point:
For me, "fetus" is an ugly word. There are some biological terms that don't denote anything disgusting (as does, say, "pus"), yet whose mere sound I just find ugly. One such word, with a meaning similar to "fetus," is "larva." Some others: "follicle," "gizzard," "corpuscle," "plasma."
For me, "embryo" is okay! I respond warmly to it.
Don't ask me why the above terms sound ugly to me. Don't they to anyone else? In the case of "fetus," perhaps it reminds me of "fetid"?
I use "unborn child" a lot. A pro-choicer can get out their dictionary and say that a "baby" is necessarily born, but they can't do that successfully with "child." The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines "child" as "an unborn or recently-born person."
According to Gallup polls, between 1967 and 1972 there was a tremendous migration in the US from pro-life to pro-choice; there was also a deliberate push to institute a "lexicon of dehumanization." Just a coincidence? (See http://www.noterminationwithoutrepresentation.org/pro-life-expressing-the-highest-ideals-of-the-left/. Please search for "inner reasons". )
https://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/fetal.asp
https://twitchy.com/sd-3133/2015/03/24/not-just-a-clump-of-cells-why-is-cosmo-troubled-by-this-but-not-abortion-photo/
The only exception, of course, is when people try to rationalize killing the unborn. Then suddenly they become fetuses, embryos, zygotes, or zefs. Pro-life advocates should refuse to concede this ground. For a thought experiment imagine if a bunch of bureaucrats proposed compulsory euthanasia for all "geriatrics" (defined to be everyone over the age of 80), citing excessive burden on the healthcare system and social security payments. I would hope we would reject the other side's language, instead promoting terms like "senior citizens" and "elderly people". The use of a strictly scientific term that's foreign to most people is a deliberate way of removing humanity from the victims.
It's important to pick our battles and avoid wasting time with semantic arguments, seeing as both time and patience are limited resources. But at the same time, we should not agree to use dehumanizing terminology.