[WikiEN-l] Major Correction

Wed Oct 29 16:14:31 UTC 2003

Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
>There is a legitimate medical term for this procedure, 
>which goes back to before the anti-choice movement 
>politicized it: intact dilation and extraction. That some 
>people haven't heard the term doesn't mean we can't 
>use it.

I agree. "Partial-birth abortion" simply is too POV for us to use because of  
the use of the word " birth." This negates our "common use" naming convention 
in a similar way as "Eskimo" is depreciated in favor of the less widely-used 
"Inuit" ("Eskimo" is a derogatory term meaning "eaters of raw fish" while 
"Inuit" means "the people"). Might was well also swap the word "abortion" 
with "murder of the unborne" since "birth" has very clear baby-related 
connotations. "Intact dilation and extraction" is an accepted medical term 
that is dryly descriptive. 

So if I can't say that Pol Pot was a genocidal maniac responsible for the 
murder of over 2 million of his own people and have to instead dryly state 
that "During his rule up to two million Cambodians were killed", then I don't 
think we can use "partial-birth abortion" as an article title about the 
procedure (maybe, if we get enough material, we could have an article at 
[[partial-birth abortion]] about the term and the controversy surrounding the  
use of the term). 

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)