Deformed babies and PC speech
There is such hypocrisy in society that at times it’s hard to stomach. In some areas we have become so prissy in speech that "political correctness" has become one of the chief marks of a sensitive heart. But our practice and our speech in other areas are far from sensitive.
We’re urged by super-sensitive people to act as though we don’t know what deformity is. "Pretend you don’t really notice it." Part of that pretence is our calling things by different names. We draw attention to deformities by our very unwillingness to name them. We leave people speechless in the presence of their dear friends when one of their family members is misshapen or in some way hurt. We can say a child has leukemia but we can’t say it is retarded. We have made "retarded" a dirty word because some morons have used it in a scurrilous way and now we are speechless when thinking about some sweet child that has been hurt in its mind.
We rightly despise the spirit that sneers or titters in the presence of someone with a physical abnormality; but that has nothing to do with what we call these abnormalities. The sneering has to do with a heart problem! And the cure for such abominable behavior is not to draw attention to such abnormalities by verbally walking around them as if we were walking on eggs. We are offered sugary sweet phrases like, "These are ‘special’ people" or the round about speech like, "These are ‘mentally challenged’ persons." Well of course they’re special and mentally challenged! But though they are special they are ordinary! They’re one of us. They’re part of a human family in which some of us are sick and misshapen and some of us are retarded. Then in that saccharine tone we can hear the agony aunts tell a little five-year-old who asks what’s wrong with little Jamie, "Nothing dear. She’s a special child." Arrrgh!
We only make matters more difficult when we outlaw legitimate speech that is courteously and sympathetically spoken. And here’s the kicker, many of the same people that rant and rave about plain but caring speech rant and rave about our freedom to use every vile phrase you can think of, in movies and sit-coms.
Then there’s our practice! While we’re sitting inventing ever new ways of avoiding saying some things and condemning as insensitive those that disagree with us, we approve of and sometimes encourage those who choose to abort babies because they are in some way misshapen or will not be "a normal healthy" baby. ("Why is mummy killing the special person inside her?" And the answer he’s given is something like, "Actually we should say terminate and it’s not really a special person, just a fetus. What’s that?...Yes, ter min ate. Yes, it means "to end". Well, yes, that’s true it’s ending it by killing it but we mustn’t say kill because that’s not polite. Yes, fee tuss. See, you can pick those words up like magic.")
We made it easier when we adopted legalese and called a developing human a "fetus". In this way a distraught parent won’t feel quite so guilty if she chooses to kill the developing human inside her. You know the routine, call it by a different name and that makes it something else. Of course not every woman feels guilt—far from it. I recently heard a woman on a TV program say that when she discovered that she was pregnant by her partner she simply had no time and no wish to have a baby so "I just terminated it." Shy about it? Absolutely not. She bragged on the fact that it was a simple decision for her and while she understood that it might be for others it was no big deal for her. You don’t really want it? Get rid of it. This from a woman who is fierce in criticism of those who use older forms of speech like deformed or retarded. I find it a bit more than difficult to take lessons from such a person on what sensitivity is. (And I wonder what kids think today when they hear this kind of talk everywhere they turn? Do they subconsciously think, "It’s a good job my parents thought I was convenient or I would have flushed down some toilet at some clinic"? Could this be a strand of what goes on inside them when they feel insecure and see themselves wanted only if they’re useful? Maybe one of these days someone will do a study on that. They’re doing them on everything else.)
We don’t want anyone to think badly of crippled or misshapen children but as a society we’re quite willing to kill them in the womb before they get to be a verbal challenge because we already see them as a burden. And we rabbit on and on about it and so shape the thoughts of young girls and boys who will become parents before we know it.
Thanks to the gurus some parents feel guilty if they don’t kill the child in the womb. "Imagine, knowing the child is going to suffer this way and allowing it to live, tut, tut." Some of us are moving in that direction with older and feeble parents, aren’t we? "We would put an old dog down so it’s a disgrace that we won’t put down someone with Alzheimer’s. What kind of a government is it that....?" They’re a drain on resources and on the time and energy that family members could use otherwise. So our older parents that are now very dependent, and know it, feel they’re in the way and they feel guilty if they don’t want to die. They see their family "stuck with them" so is it any surprise some of them want to die? If they die they won’t have to watch that tired, pained look in their faces and they won’t have to overhear snatches of conversations, "...yes, she/he would be better off..." One of these days one of these hurting people is going to apologize to his or her family, "I’m sorry for still being here but I’m doing the best I can. Maybe I’ll slip off before the week’s out."
