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What Religious Liberty?
The Incredible Ever-Expanding Dead End
Anti-Cure, Anti-Life
Whose Values in Education?
Toppling Dominos
Anti-Christians don't have to be Hypocrites but Many Volunteer
Intolerant Tolerance
The Emperor's Clothes or a Cheap Tuxedo
The Myth of Hitler's Pope, Part I
The Myth of Hitler's Pope, Part II
Embryonic Stem Cell Research Again
The Madness of Secularism
"Don't Impose Your Religion on Me"
Dictatorship of Relativism
Two Babies at Christmas
Living Will or Death Warrant?
Court Ordered Slow Motion Torture-Death Sentence
Men in Black
A Lot of Hot Air
The Culture War Battles
"Stay with us, Lord"
Secular-to-English Dictionary
Moral Guidance for Catholics in this Election
Christians Losing America
Stem Cell Wars
Catholic Pro-Abortion Politicians and Communion
Useful Idiots
Who Killed Jesus?
A Primer on Gay Marriage
Whose Side are You on?
Vouchers Revisited
Real and Fake Cloning Bans
Broken Compasses
No Room in the Inn
Killing Fields Revisited
Gay but not Merry
Adam and Steve?
The Battle for the Court
Victimless Crimes
More Salt, Please
The Next Big Fight
When Religion Becomes Evil
Virginity Making a Comeback?
You've Come a Long Way, Baby
The Incarnational Approach
The Many Meanings of ACLU
Things Your Media Never Told You
A Nasty Little Secret
Two Points of View on the Birth of Jesus
You Gotta Kill Them.  How Else Are They Going To Learn?
Perplexing Christmas Questions
How Do You See Christ Today?
Now that there is Another Ewe, will there be Another You?
What is Conscience Anyhow?
Divorce of Love and Life
What Counts as a Mass?
What is a Covenant?
I Wish I had Your Faith
Are there Too Many Decrees of Nullity?
Dutch Treats
Ecumenism
Going from Baby Doe to Granny Doe
Comments of Evangelium Vitae
The Exception Corrupts the Rule
Good Morality or Good Medicine
Generation-X'ers Smart in Every Way But One
A Matter of Good Breeding
Herod and Pontius Pilate at the Polls
Hitler's Pope or Righteous Gentile?
The Unknown God
What exactly is wrong with homosexuality?
Ideology Trumps Science, Reality, and Common Sense
What Exactly is an Indulgence?
Infallibility and Error in the Church
Pilate Asked, "What is Truth?"
The Truth about Families
New Killing Fields
Choice of Language and Language of Choice
A Lexicon for Our Day
Why are there so many bodies?
Marijuana, Medicine or Menace?
Medical Research and Ethics
Meditation
"You Taught me well, Mommie dearest"
Moral Fallout
Neutral on the Wrong Side
"These are the Nineties After All"
Many are Wed but Few are Married
"...Prepare him for additional obligations"
A Useful Lie
A Partridge in a Pear Tree
Religious Persecution in the U.S.?
What Makes a Person a Person?
The Point of a Point of View
Politically Correct, Morally Depraved
Population Controllers out of Control
Practical Dreamers
Social Progress through Immorality
Shall we Do Evil for Goodness Sake?
Reason and Faith
Resurrection Glory
Same Sex Marriages?
Pearl of Great Price
"I used to be schizophrenic, but we're all right now"
Sexual Morality Irrelevant in Judging Public Officials?
Undesirable Side Effects
Some News is Good News
SOSSLQ's, not POSSLQ's
Spoils of Splits
Why Attend Mass Every Sunday?
Is it All Right to Pull the Plug?
An Appeal for Intolerance
Topics Catechetical
A Voting Catechism
A Moral Guide to Voting
Vouchers: Has Their Time Come?
What Child is This?
What did they die of?
You are the Man
You may be a liberal if...
Get Rid of that Worthless Relative
Planned Un-Parenthood
Weighing Pro-Life Issues Prior to Voting

by Monsignor James C. Brunner

Faith Points

There are two erroneous bits of folklore that we would be better without. One of these says, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never harm me." The other comes from Shakespeare, "What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet." Names may not break my bones, but names can lead others to break them. One of the reasons for the success of the Nazi persecution of the Jews was the incessant propaganda in which Jews were called vile names and associated with everything vile. The lovers in Romeo and Juliet were unrealistic, as are many other lovers. The names that we give to things influence the way that we treat them. Would you permit anyone to kill a baby? Of course not, you say, but at the same time you might not object if somebody kills a fetus, which is nothing more than killing an unborn baby. Why does infanticide beget universal revulsion while abortion, which is nothing more than an early stage infanticide, is treated with tolerance and indifference, if not understanding? We are anesthetized by the name. In fact abortionists deliberately choose names that mislead or disguise the reality of what they do. Their unwillingness to describe accurately their deeds is a tribute to the power of the truth and to the certainty of the error of their position. Nothing is more telling of the moral bankruptcy of their position than their frenzied efforts to disguise their activity. To breathe some reality into the abortion issue it might be useful to have some translations of their language. To this end I have decided to provide a brief lexicon as a guide through the verbal thicket planted by abortionists.

Anti-abortionist: A name that abortionists give to pro-lifers. It is odd that every group except pro-lifers is allowed to name itself. We prefer the term pro-lifers, but you will rarely see that in a newspaper article. The term implies that our opponents are pro-death and, even though it is true, they do not like being pictured that way. They are all for the death of an unborn human being that is inconveniently or embarrassingly present. The infant is present in practically every case because of irresponsible activity of those who want to be rid of the infant.

Anti-choice. A name given pro-lifers by abortionists to paint them as opposed to the American way of life and our freedom of choice. It also distracts from the object of their choice, which is to kill an innocent, unborn human being. Laws against rape or slavery also limit the choices of rapists and slave owners, but these choice-limiting laws do not offend abortionists. It is only with respect to killing of preborn human beings that they apply the pejorative "anti-choice."

Derivation of embryonic stem cells. An innocuous way of describing the killing of a human embryo by slicing him open and extracting his stem cells for research.

Elimination of free will. What Catholic abortionists call the Church’s condemnation of abortion. They know full well that the Church cannot eliminate anyone’s free will. What they really want is to have the Church say that the abuse of their free will in the immoral choice of abortion is not wrong. The Church can no more remove the free will of an abortionist than it can of a rapist. It cannot approve the abuse of free will by an abortionist any more than it can by a rapist.

Fetal tissue. The name abortionists give to a baby growing in the womb of a mother. It is easier to accept elimination of tissue than elimination of babies. Similar terms: lump of tissue; product of conception; potential human. Translation: an unborn baby. If their intent is to eliminate an unwanted baby why don’t they just say so? It is ironic how far abortionists will go to dehumanize unborn babies and yet, when it comes to a question of selling the body parts of aborted fetuses for research as they have begun recently to do, they describe these parts as "human embryonic and fetal tissues." Fetuses are not quite human enough in the eyes of the abortionists to be protected by laws protecting the lives of human beings, but they are sufficiently human to be used for human research.

Imposing one’s own morality on another. An activity that pro-lifers are supposed to be engaged in by trying to outlaw the killing that takes place in abortion. It is all right to impose morality in the case of homicide, rape, theft, etc. It is only with respect to the safeguarding the life of an unborn human being that the imposition of morality is considered inappropriate.

Partial-birth abortion. A procedure in which a well-developed unborn baby is first extracted by its feet, its skull pierced with scissors that open the skull, and then its brains suctioned out. Abortionists portray this grisly procedure, which is nothing more than infanticide in the process of birth, as dilation and extraction. That is more clinically and aesthetically acceptable than the real butchery that previous name describes.

Pro-Choice. A clever appellation that makes supporting of killing babies something that is benign if not noble. It is much better to be known as supporting freedom of choice rather than as promoting destruction of unborn children.

Reproductive freedom. For abortionists this means the right to kill a baby after the reproductive process has achieved a successful result. Reproductive freedom is the right claimed by abortionists of killing a fellow human being so that there will be no reproduction at all. The unborn child is deprived of all freedom, even that most basic freedom, the right to live.

There is one more entry for the lexicon worthy of consideration:

Ethically challenged. That is a name that applies to so-called pro-lifers who wring their hands over abortion and do nothing about it. They do not help women with unwanted pregnancies. They do not join pro-life groups. They do not protest abortion. And when they vote they are just as likely to support avowed pro-abortionists. During the next presidential administration as many as three Supreme Court Justices will be appointed. The ethically challenged are so busy wringing their hands that they do not even think of voting for candidates who are likely to appoint pro-life judges and think nothing of voting for candidates who vow that they will appoint pro-abortionists as judges. Included in the ethically challenged group are legislators who say that they are personally opposed to abortion and contrive to overcome their opposition by voting for it in any case.

The foregoing lexicon is not complete because the devious ways of abortionists are numerous. Truth is a potent force. If it were not abortionists would not go to such extraordinary lengths to conceal it. Pro-lifers should be guided by the truth because the truth will make us free.