The “Beatriz” story has gotten extensive coverage, both here and elsewhere – to the point where the details almost don’t need to be recapitulated here.
But that “almost” is important; the details do need to be recapitulated, because abortion proponents have decided that the facts behind Beatriz’s pregnancy and delivery are devastating to their case. As we’ve come to expect from pro-aborts, this calls for a concentrated assault on the whole concept of “words mean things” – which, in a case as cut and dried as Beatriz’s, has resulted in an excellent impetus for zombie George Orwell to thrust his moldering hand through the earth in a macabre thumbs-up.
Reliably insane RH Reality Check provides the blueprint for pro-aborts’ facepalm-worthy blurring of words and concepts vis-à-vis Beatriz. In a piece of stunning logical galumphing, the benighted Jodi Jacobson condemns pro-life “linguistic gymnastics,” categorically states that “a hysterotomy is an abortion,” and then proceeds to plug her ears and yell. Abortion-obsessed blog Care2 followed suit with “El Salvador Says an Abortion isn’t an Abortion to Make Themselves Feel Better,” a headline spectacularly replete with both bizarre title capitalization and an aneurysm-inducing pronoun-antecedent relationship.
Now, pro-aborts love this “blurring” tactic, though they rarely use it this brazenly. Previous popular iterations include redefining “reproductive rights” to include deliberately destroying the reproductive process, whereupon everyone hops on the kill-your-children bandwagon (…right?).
So in this iteration, Jodi Jacobson assumes that every hysterotomy is an abortion. (If this were true, the term “hysterotomy abortion” would be redundant, and all-knowing Wikipedia would redirect it to “hysterotomy.”) From there she overlooks the fact that every C-section – the procedure by which Beatriz’s baby was delivered – requires a hysterotomy (i.e., an incision into the uterus). So we’re blurring “hysterotomy” to mean “abortion,” and presto: everyone will have to agree that El Salvador sanctioned abortion.
Never mind that the reasoning implied by this uniquely pro-abort synechdoche could just as effectively defend the harmless act of consuming poppies. Also, I have officially redefined my thrice-weekly ice cream binges as “therapeutic dairy for the purposes of gradual body modification in an indeterminate direction.”
But let’s interrupt the International Pro-Abortion Linguistic Olympics for a second and get down to first principles. If you deep-six the appeals to emotion and nix the buzzwords, it takes just one simple question to get to the heart of the “choice” pro-aborts relentlessly champion. Namely, what does an abortion do?
The point of Beatriz’s C-section – which, recall, included a hysterotomy as one of its parts – was to end her pregnancy. Sure. But there are at least a few ways to accomplish that. Think Jodi Jacobson would care to guess what by far the most common one (unless you’re in New York) is?
I’ll spell it out: an abortion kills a human being. When it doesn’t, it’s called a “failed abortion,” or an “abortion attempt,” and abortionists start flipping out about finishing the job. For more on that, consult our Inhuman investigation, or ask Melissa Ohden.
So if Jacobson wants, as many pro-aborts do, to blur “kills a human being” to “terminates a pregnancy,” as she’s done with “hysterotomy” to “abortion,” then she’s going to have to admit that every live delivery of a baby is an abortion. Finally, a rebuttal to Ronald Reagan‘s devastating pro-life quip!
Next to “I love abortion,” “an abortion by any other name” is among pro-aborts’ most pathetic and execrable attempts to normalize a barbaric practice. So why on Earth would anyone resort to this painfully weak line of reasoning?
The answer is because abortion advocates have really stepped in it this time, and this is the best backpedaling available. See, pro-aborts spent the weeks up to Beatriz’s operation keening that Beatriz would die if she didn’t get an abortion. Even as El Salvador’s Institute of Legal Medicine insisted that “[a]t this time, [Beatriz] is clinically stable, which means that right now there is no imminent risk of danger of death,” pro-aborts doubled down on “Beatriz will die,” in huge neon capital letters.
Well, El Salvador refused Beatriz the abortion. Her baby perished a few hours after delivery, having received the best care the doctors could give her. And Beatriz herself is stable.
This puts abortion advocates in a tough place: they screamed for days that the sky is falling, and now the world is shrugging at the rain. Solution: they either go all in on this ridiculous “everything is abortion” defense…or they admit their disappointment that Beatriz, unlike Savita before her, didn’t die.
Granted, pro-aborts had to lie like crazy to make Savita fit their narrative, but at least the “woman dies from being denied an abortion” framework was there to exploit. But when “woman lives after being denied an abortion, despite hysterical doomsaying by abortion-pushers in other countries”? Forget about it.
And that’s why we all have to endure this tear-your-hair-out, Munch-grade idiocy about emergency C-sections being abortions. Because as stupid as it sounds, it’s worlds better for pro-abort messaging than complaining that Beatriz was supposed to kick the bucket for the cause.
UPDATE: Per RealChoice, it turns out that all of the above underestimates pro-abort mendacity.
