Truth in advertising is a legal requirement in the United States. But truth in advocacy often gets a pass. The polemics surrounding the abortion issue makes that manifest.
Abortion is in the news again, thanks to the live coverage of the Supreme Court oral argument in Dobbs v. Jackson, a case testing the constitutionality of a Mississippi statute banning most abortions after 15 weeks.
Few issues arouse as much passion as abortion. It’s not hard to see why. Depending on one’s perspective, abortion is about a woman’s right to control her own body, free of governmental interference. Or it is about an unborn child’s right to survive and to avoid physical extermination. As the late constitutional law professor John Hart Ely noted in his often-cited 1973 Yale Law Journal article on Roe v. Wade, “the moral dilemma abortion poses is so difficult as to be heartbreaking.”
This essay does not attempt to evaluate the merits of either side of that moral dilemma. Rather, it examines how each side uses language to legitimize its positions and denigrate those of its opponent. Some might excuse such textual manipulation as zealous advocacy. But it borders on dishonesty, and makes this inherently contentious issue even more inflammatory.
Continue reading
toputitbluntly.com 