The Abortion Issue and Connotative Language

     When we consider language, its main purpose is to clearly communicate images and ideas. When words are used to communicate, they form thoughts and images to the hearer of those words. For example, if I said to you, “The brown dog jumped over the fence,” an image created by that statement would form in your mind. There would probably be many images created, depending on the hearer, of what the dog looked like and the type of fence the dog jumped. Still, the images created by my statement would be very similar. If my statement about the dog and the fence would have been more detailed, the reader’s image would be more specific. We all enjoy an author who writes with vivid descriptions which in turn create vivid images in our mind.

     Another way that language communicates that is not necessarily clear is through connotative words. The word connotation means, “the suggesting of a meaning by a word apart from the thing it explicitly names or describes”.¹ In other words, when a particular word is heard, the hearer applies a meaning to the word based upon his own context, rather than the actual definition of the word. As an example, when you hear the word, ‘father’, what images are created in your mind? For me, it creates very positive images because I had a wonderful, caring earthly father and I have a loving, caring Heavenly Father. For others, a negative image may arise because you had a father who did not treat you well. The simple definition of a father is “a male parent.” As you can see, the definition is straightforward and does not create a connotative response to the word.

     Many times, words are taken advantage of in order to associate that word with a connotative response instead of the actual definition of the word. When this is successfully done in a culture, then the language has been manipulated. I am not going to place a value judgment on this every time it happens, but clearly there are times when connotative meanings are created with certain words to purposefully frame the conversation in a certain way.

     We see the use of connotative language in the debate over human life in the womb. For those who promote the destruction of life in the womb, connotative language is important because of the images naturally created in our minds when we literally understand what takes place when an abortion is performed, either chemically or surgically. Let’s face it, the killing of human life does not play well when trying to defend the pro-abortion position. Let’s consider two connotative words that are used by the pro-abortion position.

     The first word to consider is abortion. “Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. The unmodified word abortion generally refers to induced abortion, or deliberate actions to end a pregnancy.”²  Now before I am criticized for using Wikipedia as my source for defining abortion, I must say it was difficult to find a definition for abortion that did not include biases within the definition. Let me present a couple of examples: “the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy, most often performed during the first 28 weeks of pregnancy.”³ The second part of this definition adds information that is not relevant to the definition. Another definition, provided by Yale Medicine is, “Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy before the fetus can survive outside the uterus…”⁴ Again, they place a parameter around the definition of abortion which is not objectively true about abortion.

     The definition of abortion I highlighted above uses “clinical” language to define it, but it does not include descriptive language to explain the process of abortion. It does not take much imagination to “connect the dots” to understand what abortion does to the unborn life. Because of this clinical language, abortion becomes more of an idea in people’s minds that an actual action involving destroying a human life. This has made the word ‘abortion’ more connotative and associated with “a woman’s right” rather than the reality that a human life is being destroyed. When we step back and look at abortion from the perspective that the life of an unborn baby is part of “a woman’s right”, then the baby is reduced to being chattel⁵ property, with their life at the mercy of the whims of the mother and others. In this context, I use the term mother loosely, but literally. Consider the slogan, “My body, my choice” as an indirect acknowledgement that the unborn baby (a separate body) is her possession or property.

     The second connotative word we want to consider in the context of the pro-life debate is fetus. This word is popularly used in a connotative sense to describe the unborn life in the womb. Whereas definitionally, the pro-abortion advocates are using this word  correctly, they are using the term in a connotative sense to convey the idea that the unborn life is not human or even worse, a clump of cells. Again, it makes abortion seem more palatable if we can reduce the value of this human life in the womb.

     The definition of fetus is “a developing human from usually two months after conception to birth”⁶ This definition is fairly consistent among the sources I consulted. To further explain this term, it describes a phase of development of the unborn baby. This first 8-9 weeks of development from the conception of the human life is the embryonic phase. This is when the internal organs of the baby are being formed. During the fetal phase, the organs develop and grow until the baby is born. We need to make clear that we understand the baby is human from the time of conception. Even though the baby is going through the embryonic and fetal stages of development, he/she is still a unique human being with its personal DNA signature that continues to grow and develop, even after they are born.

     The issue of unborn life has become an emotionally charged topic on both sides of the debate because of what is at stake:  protecting the life of the unborn vs. the “rights” of the pregnant woman. In this discussion, as defenders of life, we must recognize that language is important and words can knowingly or unknowingly be manipulated. We must be aware that just because certain words are spoken, they may not mean to the speaker what you think they mean. We want to speak words of truth and love to those we encounter and make sure we understand the implication of the words we use and the words they use.

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¹https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/connotation. Accessed 8/1/25.

² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion. Accessed 8/2/25

³ from Oxford Languages and Google. Accessed 8/2/25

⁴https://www.yalemedicine.org/clinical-keywords/abortion. Accessed 8/2/25

⁵chattel: a human being considered to be property; an enslaved person. (Dictionary.com) Accessed 8/1/25

⁶https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fetus. Accessed 8/2/25.