"Choice" Language is a Loser

There has been a great deal of shifting both rhetoric and positions regarding abortion, especially on the left in wake of last year's election. Interesting, this, from the "Foreign Language of Choice" by George Lakoff, professor of linguistics at Berkely, at Alternet:

Many of the feminist organizations have come to the conclusion that the word "choice," and the concept of choice, is a bad idea. Deborah Tannen, who is one of the best-known linguists in the country, observed over a decade ago that the word "choice" is taken from a consumer vocabulary -- as compared to the word "life," which is taken from a moral vocabulary.

Morality beats consumerism every time.

Moreover, the word "choice" versus "decision" is a bad idea because "choice" is less serious a word than "decision." From a linguistic perspective, "choice" was in itself a bad choice.

The word "abortion" is also negative -- the word "abort" as in "abort the mission," as if something has gone terribly wrong. Now you can't just immediately change a word like that to something that's more positive, and in fact, abortions are not situations where things have gone right. The situation is an unwanted pregnancy, un-wanted, negative.

If you use the word "abortion" at all these days, what you're doing is playing on the right's turf, where they have defined the issues to suit their interests, using their words.

What is necessary is a redefinition -- what I will call a "reparsing" -- of the issue. There are four different types of reparsing that are required, and each expresses a powerfully moral idea grounded in a progressive moral perspective.

Howard Dean, he goes on to relate, has recently done this reparsing. After the linguistic twists and turns, he can calmly tell us:

In short, the right-wing is imposing a culture of death on this country and we shouldn't stand for it. Progressive values and politics are committed to preserving and nurturing life.

And I found his final claim startling:

Finally, I'm not sure of the exact numbers, but approximately 28,000 women in this country each year become pregnant as the result of a rape. That's a huge number and it occurs all over America. Here is the question that we must raise: should the federal government force a woman to bear the child of her rapist?

I am, I admit, suspicious of his inexact numbers.

Comments

[Matthias]

One anti-rape organization estimates approximately 4,000 pregnancies per year from rape: http://www.rainn.org/statistics.html

Another estimates 32,000: http://www.paralumun.com/issuesrapestats.htm

[Scott G]

The Alan Guttmacher Institute estimates that 13,000 women per year have abortions following rape or incest. If accurate, that's about 1% of all abortions in the U.S.: http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.pdf

[Not Given]

The only abortion to which one should necessarily be opposed is medically unnecessary termination of a viable pregnancy. If the life or health of the mother is at risk (i.e. ectopic pregnancy), the question of abortion becomes more difficult and, in my opinion, leans in favor of the mother.

[Anthony Perez-Miller]

One ought be suspicious of Dr. Dean's "inexact numbers". He has a most irritating habit of inventing "facts" on the fly, which seems the lowest form of sophistry, and the resort of men not nearly so intelligent as they deem themselves to be.

[Patrick O'Hannigan]

Whatever the actual number of pregnancies caused by rapes, Dean's "reasoning" is tantamount to suggesting that two wrongs (rape, unwanted pregnancy) make a right (to, um, "choose" termination), which means his linguistic problem remains-- he's trying desperately to move math vocabulary (where wrong is analagous to negative and right to positive)into the moral realm. It won't work.

Meanwhile, Dr. Lakoff continues to rack up consulting fees from gullible Democrats who think it's all about rebranding.

[Jordan]

Methinks Mr. Dean commits at least one fallacy in his rhetorical excess. Here's a candidate:

argumentum ad consequentiam

http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/conseq.htm

[lisa]

Why don't we just call right wrong and wrong right and be done with it?

[filing bankruptcy without an attorney]

the filing bankruptcy without an attorney

[hotel reservation travel xxasdf]

the hotel reservation travel xxasdf

[gloria]

enewsblog
ebloggy
blogspirit
blogsome
blogs
bloghi
bloggers
bloggerbash
blog.com
blogeasy