When the Facts Are Inconvenient, Change the Language

Ah, those assisted suicide ideologues: They are always looking for just the right words and language to obfuscate that their agenda is about suicide and mercy killing. Now, facing defeat of their assisted suicide legalization bill, “Californians for Compassionate Choices,” (see what I mean about their use of language?) is urging media not to use accurate and descriptive words to describe assisted suicide, because doing so is “biased.” “Assisted suicide and physician-assisted suicide are pejorative terms that paint terminally ill patients in the same negative light as terrorist suicide bombers,” the press release asserts in laughable hyperbole.

Rather then use accurate terms, media are urged to use gooey euphemisms instead, which are deemed “neutral.” Thus, media are urged to call assisted suicide “death with dignity,” or “right to die,” or “end of life choices,” as supposedly “more accurate.” But they aren’t. They hide rather than describe.

If a movement cannot win a public policy debate because accurate descriptions and language hurt their cause, then there is definitely something wrong with the agenda. Or to put it another way: It isn’t the words, it is the killing.