James Taranto had some fun yesterday with a doctor that forgot to use the prescribed euphemism.
In an item yesterday, we noted a curious quote from Jerry Edwards, an Arkansas aborter who was offering to evacuate the wombs of women who evacuated New Orleans free of charge. "If we didn't provide it now," Edwards said, "they would get it later--a late-term abortion that would give greater risk to the mother's health."
Needless to say, we were flummoxed. "How would the timing of a woman's choice affect her mother's health?" we asked. But several readers have written with a theory that, if true, is shocking: that by "the mother," Edwards meant the woman who is exercising her constitutional right to choose.
The implications are chilling. Of course it's possible that some of these women are mothers, as a result of previous pregnancies during which, tragically, they were too poor or uneducated to make a choice. But Edwards is sweepingly characterizing all women exercising their constitutional rights as "mothers." And think about what that means: If a woman availing herself of her right to choose is a "mother," then the fetus is a "child" rather than what science has definitively proved it to be, which is just a clump of cells.
Now if people want to reject science and believe in superstitious nonsense like this, they are entitled to do so. After all, the same Constitution that guarantees the right to choose also provides for a limited "freedom of religion." But when even abortion clinics are being run by antichoice fanatics, American women, and even enlightened male-Americans, should be afraid--very afraid.
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