Unwanted Pregnancies or Unwanted Babies?

So the other day a cadre of pro-abortion advocates started pushing a Twitter hashtag called #exposeCPC. As in, "Expose Crisis Pregnancy Centers." I was deeply amused, and went on my first ever Twitter binge, mocking their contributions. Did you know, for example, that CPCs are often run by Christians who want you to keep your baby? The horror! Did you know that they are against abortion? Well, duh. Did you know they advertise "free services"? The gall! That's a flavor of the kind of thing Planned Parenthood was "exposing." Utterly pathetic and laughable.

In the midst of my own Twitter campaign a militant young lady started up a heated back-and-forth. Her issue is that pro-lifers like me don't care about "preventing unwanted pregnancy." Try as I might, I couldn't quite puncture that balloon because she steadfastly refused to answer one simple question:

Is abortion "prevention"?

You see, abortion is not the "prevention" of pregnancy. It is the termination of a pregnancy. Which means, to cut through the Orwellian doublespeak, the termination of a baby. Prevention means avoiding getting pregnant. And abortion has nothing to do with avoiding getting pregnant.

Naturally, this young woman found herself wanting to change the subject. In fact, after a testy exchange, she claimed, "We're not talking about abortion." We were, apparently, talking about contraception. Her refusal to answer my question was an admission that abortion is not prevention. Her beef, and that of Planned Parenthood, is that we pro-lifers don't care about contraception. Nothing about abortion at all, to hear them tell it.

This not-so-subtle shift exposes something deep and quite profound. I asked my interlocutor to substitute the word "baby" every time she wanted to use the word "pregnancy." It results in very morally problematic sentences, that even they know deep down. We are not talking about "pregnancies." We're talking about "babies."

It is a sign, indeed, of how on the defense the pro-abortion lobby is that they cannot even defend abortion anymore. They defend "prevention" services. It is of the utmost importance to their cause to culturally redefine language. Don't let them.