"Abortion" and "Foetus": The Episcopal Commission on Peace and Justice Electoral Guide 2015 ~ yes, words DO matter!

A Partial Birth Abortion: 

where the nearly delivered baby is murdered 

by stabbing him or her into the brain 

I have written about the shameful decision of the CCCB's Episcopal Commission to avoid using the word "abortion",  and the use of the word "foetus", rather than "unborn child". This is compromise with evil. 

Abortion: The Catechism of the Catholic Church uses "abortion". If the Guide is referring to abortion, why not use the word? Sins need to be specified and not obfuscated. In fact, a careful reading of the Guide does not tell us why abortion should be opposed (or for that matter suicide and euthanasia, which are mentioned by name); why it is a moral evil, a mortal sin. Given the state of catechesis it cannot be presumed that Catholics are cognizant of abortion as an evil to be opposed as a non-negotiable. To the contrary, the trend over the past decade and more shows an increase in Catholics (including regular Sunday Mass attendees) adhering to a pro-abortion position. The gap with our separated protestant brethren is actually widening. It is the Catholics who are embracing the culture of death more than the protestants. The moral relativist crisis amongst the faithful is actually worsening. 

Foetus: The morality of using "foetus" outside of a medical context is dehumanizing and degrading. It is used habitually and purposely by those who do not want to use "unborn child" or "baby". All the more reason to use "unborn child".  Consider: during partial birth abortion (which is practiced in Canada), the child is delivered free of the mother, but for the head (otherwise it is "legally" considered a homicide). The baby is then murdered by the abortionist stabbing him or her just below the skull at the back of the neck into the brain. Is such a murdered child to be referred to as a "foetus" in a Catholic election guide? 

John Finnis of Oxford University argues it in this manner: 

For about 12 weeks after viability some of these little beings are on the outside being tended by the pediatrician and everyone as babies, and some of them are on the inside still intertwined with their mothers, and being cared for, in some cases, by gynecologists who recognise they have two patients, and in some cases, as the mother decides (in America, or the party official in China) being threatened with destruction by her (or the state's) abortionist as a mere fetus. However extensive the rights in all fairness of the mother, and they are extensive, they are no basis at all for denying to the child she's bearing during those twelve weeks its proper human name, her baby or child...

Excellent point! Words have consequences: at times very serious moral consequences.