Subject: Euphemisms Cloud the Embryonic Stem Cell Research Debate
Source: Washington Times; July 15, 2001

Euphemisms Cloud the Embryonic Stem Cell Research Debate
By C. Ben Mitchell, Ph.D.

[Pro-Life Infonet Note: C. Ben Mitchell, Ph.D. is senior fellow of the
Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity and editor of the journal Ethics &
Medicine: An International Perspective on Bioethics.]

Words are powerful tools. They can be used as a shield or a weapon. They
have incited revolutions, shaped nations, and thrilled readers. They are
the stuff of which most human communication is made. Nowhere is this more
evident than in the latest development in human cloning and embryonic
stem-cell research.

Scientists at Massachusetts-based Advanced Cell Technologies (ACT)
announced July 12 that they have begun experiments to clone human embryos
to harvest their stem cells. Not only does this signal that the clone age
has arrived on American soil, but ACT's use of euphemisms to describe
their research is simply remarkable.

According to linguists Keith Allan and Kate Burridge, in their
volume,"Euphemism & Dysphemism," "a euphemism is used as an alternative to
a dispreferred expression, in order to avoid possible loss of face: either
one's own face or, through giving offense, that of the audience, or of
some third party." In other words, a euphemism is a word game used to take
the sting out of a practice or behavior we would otherwise find offensive
or reprehensible.

Apparently, Advanced Cell Technologies are not only about inventing new
procedures, but about inventing new words euphemisms to be exact. ACT is
calling the subjects of their research "embryos or embryolike entities."
What is an "embryolike entity"_ Does it differ biologically from a human
embryo_ No. It's a euphemism. According to an article by Rick Weiss in The
Washington Post: "The group debated at length whether there needs to be a
new term developed for the embryolike entity created by cloning. Some
believe that since it is not produced by fertilization and is not going to
be allowed to develop into a fetus, it would be useful to call the cells
something less inflammatory than an embryo."

Something less inflammatory than an embryo_ The term "embryo" is hardly
inflammatory. What they are planning to do to the embryo is what they are
trying to hide by calling him or her an "embryolike entity." Ronald Green,
chair of the company's ethics advisory board, said, "We're not trying to
evade anything here. . . . But think about it. There was a time when a
'mother' was the genetic mother, the gestational mother, and the birth
mother. But now technology like surrogate motherhood is separating out
those things that used to go together. The same is true for what we've
been calling the 'embryo.' "

Let's see. If we follow that logic, we should call surrogate mothers,
"motherlike entities" or "womblike gestational sites." This is worse than
sophistry: It is linguistic evil.

We've been down this road before, and it smells like the smoke of burning
human flesh. In fact, during World War II, the Nazi doctors became
extremely adept at inventing euphemisms to disguise, even sometimes from
themselves, the horrors they were perpetrating against humanity. To
justify Operation T-4, a euthanasia campaign that would make the Dutch
blush, they used words like "mercy killing," "liberation," and "life not
worthy of living" to describe the mass killing of mentally retarded
persons and the disabled. Some of the doctors even called Jews "human
ballast" in order to justify their destruction. Robert Lifton calls this
"detoxifying language," language meant to sanitize a practice which was so
repugnant that, to call it what it was would cause the world to vomit
collectively.

And so we did. When the Americans liberated Nazi Germany and the abuses
were made known, we all understood the corrosive power of euphemisms.

It matters what ACT calls its research subjects. It matters because the
world needs to know exactly what they ACT is up to in its labs. If the
people at ACT are doing destructive human embryo research, they should
have the courage to admit it and not hide behind language. If they are
cloning human beings, members of the species Homo sapiens, they should own
up to it rather than cloaking their experiments in language invented to
lull society to sleep. If they are combining human DNA with animal DNA to
create chimeras (human-animal hybrids), they should tell us in no
uncertain terms.

Decisions about the morality of human embryo research and human cloning
are not for a few scientific elitists to make. This is about the future of
humanity as we know it. This is about our children being used as research
subjects. This is about our human progeny being used as guinea pigs in
someone's big summer science project.

The stakes are gargantuan, and together we have to decide how we will
regulate this kind of research. Just because ACT does not receive
government funds doesn't mean its research cannot be regulated
effectively. It can still be made illegal, just as it is illegal for you
and me as public citizens to carry a little plutonium in our briefcase.
And even if recourse to legislation is not the way to go, the American
public has powerful ways of repudiating practices it finds abhorrent.

But first, we have to make it clear that though they hide behind whatever
linguistic devices they choose, we know exactly what ACT and their like
are up to. A rose by any other name is still a rose. And a human embryo is
a person is a tiny baby, not an "embryolike entity."