Posts Tagged ‘semantics’

National Public Radio made the decision this Spring to change the way that they cover stories concerning abortion. They’ve announced that they will no longer use the terms “pro-choice” and “pro-life,” but will instead use “abortion rights supporter” and “abortion rights opponent.” The linked article is by NPR’s ombudsman, and I’d also recommend reading her previous thoughts on the topic, since they helped to precipitate the change. That can be found here.

While the terms are a bit more clunky, NPR is not alone in this decision. Almost all other major news outlets had already switched. And while “abortion rights advocate” doesn’t really have the same ring to it as “pro-choice” to my ears, it does seem to convey more of an element of neutrality, which I would guess is NPR’s objective.

But does this really matter? In one of the linked articles, NPR’s ombudsman quotes a linguistics professor from Georgetown University, Andrea Tyler, who discusses word choice. Dr. Tyler believes that when those opposed to abortion rights were able to get the term “pro-life” into everyday use, they “won” the battle of the words. She says:

“It doesn’t seem like a good thing to be anti-choice. But it’s worse to be anti-life. So there’s an inequality in the frames when you say pro-life and pro-choice. Being the opposite of pro-choice is not as bad as being the opposite of pro-life.”

While I’m not sure I fully agree with Dr. Tyler’s view, I do believe that language can be a powerful framing tool in our lives. For instance, I used to say “pro-life” before generally switching to “anti-choice,” partly because that’s the phrase people around me were using and partly because I don’t think there’s anything remotely pro-”life” about many of those individuals (pro-”only the people who do exactly what I think they should do” is probably more accurate, but may be a bit too verbose to catch on). But I am curious to see what other people think about this, or if NPR and I are reading too much into semantics.

What do you think? Do you consciously use a particular term when talking about the opposing sides in the abortion debate? If so, why?