AAPLOG has recently published a new resource for medical professionals: a glossary of medical terminology for life-affirming medical professionals. The document offers suggestions for language to use and avoid when discussing pregnancy, pregnancy complications, prenatal diagnoses, feticide, and related topics; research language suggestions, and other important considerations.
Life-affirming medical professionals share the objective of promoting optimal healthcare for both pregnant women and preborn children. To achieve this goal, it is essential that we use precise, medically accurate language to describe the pregnancy-related practices which intentionally harm our patients. It is especially necessary to distinguish these practices from medical interventions that separate a mother and her preborn child in the case of life-threatening pregnancy complications. We need to use this factual language consistently with our patients, with colleagues and in the public square. Failure to do so may result in confusion about the legality of lifesaving medical care and ultimately hurt the very people we endeavor to protect. This resource aims to offer guidance on using medically accurate, life-affirming language.
Resources like this one will prove crucial in our endeavor to promote a life-affirming ethic in healthcare and combat efforts by abortion advocates to manipulate medical terminology to dehumanize embryonic and fetal human beings and mislead the public about scientific facts, such as by claiming that 6-week embryos do not have a heartbeat, or that a surgical abortion is not a surgery. In the face of blatantly ideologically motivated efforts to erase our preborn patients from the public discourse on obstetrics and to minimize the risks of elective induced abortion, it is more important than ever to ensure that the language we use accurately reflects the science. We strongly recommend you read, share, and use this new resource in your practice.
