RSS
NPR changes language for reporting on abortion
Today, some top editors got together to review the 2005 policy and decided to no longer use “pro-choice” or “pro-life.”
On the air, we should use “abortion rights supporter(s)/advocate(s)” and “abortion rights opponent(s)” or derivations thereof (for example: “advocates of abortion rights”). It is acceptable to use the phrase “anti-abortion”, but do not use the term “pro-abortion rights”.
This is terrific news. I have long believed that the patently false opposition between “choice” and “life” to be misleading at best, particularly considering the calculated insidiousness with which the latter option is capable of poisoning the debate over abortion rights. While I have always advocated for pro- and anti-choice, NPR’s focus on abortion rights, rather than the act itself, is certainly more objective, appropriate and, one hopes, acceptable to both sides. Let’s hope that this marks a sea change in the terms we use to prosecute this debate, and lends some deserved legitimacy to the notion that the debate is between allowing people to make a choice, or making that choice for them.