An OB/GYN explains how medically incorrect language is used to distort the facts
Article in regular print; my fisking is in bold.
The anti-choice [pro-abortion groups want to be called "pro-choice" but refuse to use the "pro-life" for their opponents] organization Center for Medical Progress—which, in 2013, claimed tax-exempt status as a biomedical charity—have recently released two “undercover” [scare quotes] videos of Planned Parenthood officials discussing post-procedure tissue [biologically, cells make up tissues, tissues working together make organs, and organs working together make up organ systems. A late term abortion, the subject of the 1st video involved selling the developed organs for an aborted child.] donation [sale, not donation]. The group claims the videos demonstrate that Planned Parenthood profits from fetal tissue donation (which would be illegal) and that they are “haggling” [scare quotes and the video shows haggling] over the price of “baby parts.” [more scare quotes; livers and hearts can be termed parts.]
As an OB/GYN [appeal to authority logical fallacy], I can tell you that neither of these claims are true. [The transcript from the 2nd video - link - shows them haggling over the price. The other claim, that they "profit" is harder to determine, partly because of the many definitions of the word profit. The PP doctor admits receiving money for fetal tissue; isn't that profit?]
These are not "baby parts." [scare quotes] Whether a woman has a miscarriage or an abortion, the tissue specimen is called "products of conception." [As the commericial used to say, "Parts is parts."] In utero, i.e. during pregnancy, we use the term "embryo" from fertilization to 10 weeks gestation and "fetus" ["from Latin, act of bearing young, offspring; akin to Latin fetus newly delivered, fruitful;" it was used in Latin for newborns, but was not the normal word, "infans".] from 10 weeks to birth. The term baby is medically [narrow definition, designed to hide a difference that could be counted in inches or minutes] incorrect as it doesn’t apply until birth. Note: are medical terms the only ones that can be used?] Calling the tissue “baby parts” is a calculated attempt to anthropomorphize [since this is a human fetus, with all the genes of chromosomes of a human, and in the 2nd and third trimesters is recognizably human. They are "anthropomorphizing" a human. Not very hard to do.] an embryo or fetus. It is a false image—a 10-12 week fetus looks nothing like a term baby—and is medically incorrect. [Tecnically true for the 2nd video, but in the first video, the PP doctor and the actors were discusses 3 trimester fetuses (to use their word) which does have recognizable, functioning organs. Third trimester infants are viable outside the womb; I had a friend, now in her 60's, that was one of the first early trimester babies to survive.]
I am cutting this off here. It runs on for 3 paragraphs. My point is made.
The thesis of this argument is in the title: An OB/GYN explains how medically incorrect language is used to distort the facts.
Simply, what does the argument that medical terminology really mean? It is a way of hiding what is going on behind a bunch of Latin derived euphemisms: fetus, embryo, products of conception (most of us who have had children refer to them as children, not "products of conception"), post-procedure tissue and the rest.
The title of the article uses the word manipulative and, boy, is this article manipulative.
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