Politicians are in a dilemma over the divisive abortion issue. They need votes from both pro-lifers and pro-abortionists to get elected and they dare not offend either group. To escape the dilemma many resort to obfuscating language. Normally language is meant to communicate, but sometimes to miscommunicate. The favorite tool for miscommunication of politicians is the statement, "I am personally opposed to abortion, but I respect the right of others to make their own choices in this highly personal area."

Let us have a look at the first part of the statement: "I am personally opposed to abortion." Either the candidate means it or merely uses it for public relations reasons. If the politician does not mean it he is lacking in basic integrity and is unworthy of election to any office.

Some politicians may be really opposed, but on aesthetic grounds only. Abortions are not very nice. The politicians are like people who like venison but regret that one has to kill Bambi to get it. Similarly they may dislike abortion but regretfully consider it necessary if a pregnancy inconveniences a woman. Even abortionists may dislike abortion but still maintain it is a woman’s right. These politicians are indistinguishable from abortionists. Killing innocent human life is too serious a matter to be reduced to a matter of taste.

Suppose that the politicians are opposed because abortion is the killing of a small-scale human being and is therefore a moral evil. In that case these politicians are cowards who by their own admission are not living up to their convictions. If abortion is a moral evil, how could they not oppose it? Would they also say, "I am personally opposed to slavery, rape, and discrimination, but I would not oppose the right of others to engage in these practices"? Are we likely to hear them declare, "I am personally opposed to infanticide, but I respect the right of parents to dispose of their own infants"? The unborn baby takes no comfort in their alleged displeasure with abortion because it is just as dead as if the politicians approved. Politicians who express opposition to abortion and then cast votes that allow it are accomplices in abortion. The second part of their statement, "but I respect the rights of others to make their own choices" is at war with the first part. If abortion is one form of murder it should be forbidden by law just as all other forms are. A politician who will not oppose what he considers murder deserves no one’s support. So, lying or truthful, politicians who mouth this statement are unfit for public trust.

Another smoke screen utilized by some is the statement, "I am not pro-abortion, I am pro-choice." Abortionists are masters in using language to conceal, to miscommunicate. They never talk about killing the unborn, the business at hand, but about the right to make choices. Of course everyone has the right to make choices and no one wishes to deny them this right. It is like saying that everyone has the right to think or to have feelings. The faculty of choosing is not a neutral or empty concept. In choice one chooses some thing and, in the case of abortionists, it is the choice of something evil, to kill an innocent human being. Let us list the choices. (1) Sucking out the infant from the womb so that it resembles something that has gone through a blender. (2) Slicing the baby into little pieces with a curette. (3) Taking chemicals to expel an immature fetus from the womb. (4) Burning the baby's skin with a salt solution so strong that the reluctant mothers who have some of the solution seep into their own tissue have been known to jump off the table. The baby swims, sometimes for two hours, kicking and thrashing in this solution that peels off the skin. (5) In late-term abortions the baby is partially delivered and the abortionist drives scissors into its skull, opens it up, sucks out the brains after which the freshly killed baby is removed from the womb. Some choices! The next time you hear the word "choice" in the abortion debate, be aware that these are the choices. The baby has no choice because that is made by others.

If abortionists were proud of their activity they would not go to such lengths to hide what they do by distracting people with extraneous topics. In the last century slave owners practiced a similar evasion. They did not talk about slavery, which meant capturing a human being and treating him or her as a beast, but about states rights. States rights was a legitimate topic of conversation and remains so to this day, but the topic did not lend any legitimacy to slavery. The honorable expression "states rights" was used to deflect attention away from the dirty business of one human being treating another in inhumane fashion and "choice" fulfills the same function today. Rather than talk about slaughter of the innocent, abortionists prefer to talk about freedom of choice. If the choice is a direct act of killing an innocent human being, no woman, no man, no doctor, no state has that right. The next time you hear someone say that he or she is pro-choice, tell the person that you respect the right to make choices but that the choice of abortion is immoral and barbaric.