NPR Plays Newspeak Wordgame: "Abortion Rights Opponent" to be Subbed for "Pro-Life"

In another lame attempt at journalistic integrity and fairness, NPR this week has sent a memo to its journalists instructing them on the new proper and favorable terms to be used whenever reporting on the abortion debate.  From NPR's own site:

Here's the memo that was just distributed to all NPR staff:

"NPR News is revising the terms we use to describe people and groups involved in the abortion debate.

This updated policy is aimed at ensuring the words we speak and write are as clear, consistent and neutral as possible. This is important given that written text is such an integral part of our work.

On the air, we should use "abortion rights supporter(s)/advocate(s)" and "abortion rights opponent(s)" or derivations thereof (for example: "advocates of abortion rights"). It is acceptable to use the phrase "anti-abortion", but do not use the term "pro-abortion rights".

Digital News will continue to use the AP style book for online content, which mirrors the revised NPR policy.

Do not use "pro-life" and "pro-choice" in copy except when used in the name of a group. Of course, when the terms are used in an actuality they should remain." [An actuality is a clip of tape of someone talking. So if a source uses those terms, NPR will not edit them out.]

Thanks
David

David Sweeney
Managing Editor

The thinking behind this, one would assume, is to make news reporting as impartial as possible.  But, what about the term "abortion rights" in itself?  Doesn't that term load the debate toward one side?  Then, if a person were an "opponent" to "abortion rights", it makes him sound like someone who would be opposed to other rights, such as human, civil, and constitutional.  An "abortion rights advocate" sounds definintely friendlier and far less threatening.

Jeff Bercovici of The Daily Finance explains it this way:

The motive behind this move is solid enough. "Pro-choice" and "pro-life" both began, essentially, as propaganda -- expressions conceived to curry maximum sympathy for the positions they represent. How can anyone be against choice? Or against life? Why, you'd have to be downright evil!

But, over time, through sheer repetition, both phrases have lost their connotative crackle. When I call someone pro-choice, I'm not praising his dedication to the exercise of free will any more than I'm describing someone as generous and open-minded when I call him a liberal. They're words. They mean what they mean because we all agree that's what they mean.

When news organizations abandon this common-sense approach to language, they tend to get themselves mired in endless debates and tied up in rhetorical knots. That's what happened when the BBC warned its journalists against use of the word "terrorist," and when The New York Times argued with itself over whether to call certain kinds of interrogations "torture." At the extreme, thinking too much about the politics behind the words can turn you into laughingstock. Remember when Fox News started calling suicide bombers "homicide bombers"?

The funny thing is NPR used to see things this way. Back in 2005, the broadcaster considered whether to drop "pro-life" and "pro-choice" and decided to keep them. "The terms pro-choice and pro-life are in such widespread use these days that they're just as neutral as their alternatives," declared the memo explaining the decision. "Just as important, the phrases allow us to write more colloquially...rather than using wordier, less conversational descriptions." Of course, that memo also noted that the Times, the Washington Post, the Associated Press, NBC, CBS and CNN all insisted upon "supporter/opponent of abortion rights," leaving NPR more or less on an island unto itself.

But it was the right island to be on. After all, it's not as if "abortion rights" itself is a neutral phrase. Calling them "rights" implies that it is a right, and frames the debate in terms of the prerogatives of the mother. What about the right of the embryo/fetus/adorable unborn child of God not to be aborted? Or so I'd ask if I were an opponent of ab--...that is, if I were pro-life.

I bet the MSM wouldn't dare consider using "abortion advocate" and "abortion opponent."  Such terms would be just the other side of the debate coin and, yet, would be equally weighty and biased in a report or discussion. 

But, at least NPR's valiant efforts give me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside ... sniff!