Potential Human Beings? O'Reilly Slams Abortion Euphemisms, then Uses One

By Jennifer Hartline
10/18/2010
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

There are no 'potential human beings' only human beings with potential

The supporters of legal abortion depend on verbal shenanigans to persuade and give contrived 'moral' cover to the evil act of killing the child in the womb. Among their favorite euphemisms are "terminating a pregnancy," "choice," and "reproductive rights." Those who saw The O'Reilly Factor on October 7th got a double helping of this dehumanizing rhetoric, and sadly some of it came from Bill O'Reilly himself.

There are no 'potential' human beings. Only human beings, with the potential to grow and change and come closer every day to being the person God created them to be.

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WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) - Words have great potential. They can build up or just as easily tear down; heal as easily as harm; unite as easily as divide. They can also manipulate and conceal the truth.

Words twisted out of their proper meaning into a refashioned one have perhaps the greatest potential of all - the potential to convince untold numbers of well-meaning yet vacillating people to accept a lie they would otherwise reject.

Nowhere in our society is this played out more clearly than in the abortion battle. The supporters of legal abortion depend on verbal shenanigans to persuade and give moral cover to the evil act of killing the child in the womb. Among the abortion peddlers' favorite euphemisms are "terminating a pregnancy," "choice," and "reproductive rights." These deceitfully constructed terms are preferred over the word abortion itself because they brainwash people into forgetting all about the baby.

Everyone who saw The O'Reilly Factor on October 7th got a double helping of this dehumanizing rhetoric, and sadly some of it came from Bill O'Reilly himself. In a segment with Alan Colmes and Monica Crowley about "nanny state" government intrusion, Colmes argued that Republicans are the worst offenders because they want to prevent homosexuals from marrying and take away "reproductive rights" from women.

O'Reilly started out strong by saying that abortion is about life and death, not "reproductive rights." Colmes countered, "It's giving women the right to do with their bodies as they choose." Then, to my dismay, O'Reilly offered up the latest euphemism du jour: "That sounds good," he said to Colmes, "but what happens to the potential human being in the process?"

The discussion concluded with O'Reilly asking Colmes whether the government should protect the lives of potential human beings, and Colmes replied, "No, because you cannot tell when it's a potential human being, you cannot answer when that becomes a human being."

There it is: potential human being.

Not 30 minutes later in his Culture Warriors segment, while discussing that horrible woman in England who said she'd be the first to put a pillow over the face of a suffering child, O'Reilly told Margaret Hoover that abortion sloganeering has desensitized people to the seriousness of abortion through the use of euphemisms like "reproductive rights." When Hoover objected to him conflating "reproductive rights" with a woman suffocating a child to death, O'Reilly sternly told her, "Whether you believe in abortion or not, it is a very serious issue. And to cloud it under the euphemism 'reproductive rights' is insulting - insulting - to the potential human beings who lose their lives."

Bill, you may have meant well, but Pot, meet Kettle. By calling your preborn neighbors only "potential" human beings, you are guilty of the very same sloganeering and deceptive euphemisms you properly denounced on your program.

There are no "potential" human beings. Only human beings, with the potential to grow and change and come closer every day to being the person God created them to be.

The pro-abortion strategy now is to insist that we cannot know exactly when life begins and therefore, whatever classification you put on the occupant of the womb (zygote, embryo, fetus, baby), it is only a "potential" human being, not an actual one. As such, it's not a matter of life and death, but solely a matter of a woman's personal choice and "rights." Therefore, no need to question the ethics or legality of abortion or consider the life being killed, since what is being destroyed was only "potential."

Now genetically and scientifically, the matter is settled. Immediately upon conception there exists a new and unique member of the species Homo sapiens. Is there any time from conception to birth when the child is a cat or a whale or a potato?

So now come the ambiguous, subjective definitions of what makes us human and when we become fully human and when a human deserves the right to his/her own life. Some will contend that intelligence is required, or independence, or utility.

The pro-abortion advocates insist that a human being is only an actual human being deserving of life if and when the mother decides so. If she wants the child, the child is a human being. If she doesn't want the child, it is at best a "potential" human being, but more likely just an insentient parasite. For the abortion propagandists, humanity is irrelevant.

I expect the abortion peddlers to perpetuate this false and dehumanizing notion that the child in the womb is merely a "potential" ...

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1 - 10 of 36 Comments

Maggie Ann
2 years ago
I agree with the last writer that Mr. O'Reilly might be using the term to engage in discussion.
What we have to do is educate. I am a nursing professor and you would not believe what people do not know. The public assumes the morning after pill can prevent fertilization. Most of your neighbors do not know where and how embryonic stem cells are made. Review a good anatomy and physiology book. They all state that life begins at conception-- well they state growth and development start there and end at death. They state all characteristics are determined at fertilization and cannot be changed. The heart starts beating at 18-21 days or 5 weeks if you count the 2 weeks before conception. Most students get the above questions wrong-- why? Because they have been educated by the liberal media.
Now to the writer above-- Catholics believe in the death penalty! It is not anti Catholic! Innocent life is different than the two evil murderers in Connecticuit. I believe that the death penalty was the law of the land at the vatican until the late 1960's. Somebody else can research that fact.
In summary I think O'Reilly did OK-- you can use his mailbox to get your view across - pleasantly please!
Catholic
2 years ago
LORD, have mercy on us!!!!!
Joseph
2 years ago
Yes O'Reilly is Catholic. I disagree with the article that O'Reilly doesn't support the Sanctity of Life. Several months ago he explained his use of "potential human being" he stated the he use that term because neither pro-lifers nor pro-abortionist can argue that the unborn child is potentially a human being. Although I disagree with the euphemism "potential human being" I can also understand how he could use to engage in the debate that abortion is evil.
Sanchez
2 years ago
I found and interesting article that explains some things about the death penalty that I think people very often get wrong. Check it out: http://dstp.cba.pl/?p=3079
BC
2 years ago
ROBERT: BTW, Bill O'Reilly is NOT for capital punishment. He has stated many times that he does not favor capital punishment, but life in prison doing hard labor.
TJ
2 years ago
Well said Pete Brady, Diane and Andy Holland! Looks like another Lib has been exposed and KO'd as the real hypocrite! War and capital punishment don't compare to the atrocity of abortion! How can you libs have so much so called compassion for criminals and terrorists and none for an innocent child in the womb?! Life begins at conception, PERIOD! Any embryology textbook on any secular college campus will tell you this.
Andy Holland
2 years ago
Kel - Diane is right. Democrats also started that little conflict at Fort Sumter. Add in the 55 million in abortion, and clearly the party of "blood" in this Babylon is the Democratic. The party of "gold" has its butcher bill too; I am personally unaffiliated.
Diane
2 years ago
To Kel, I just can't let your mistake pass. Wilson, a Democrat, got the U.S. into WW1. Roosevelt, a Democrat, got the U.S. into WWII. Truman, a Democrat, got us into the Korean War. Truman, a Democrat, ordered the use of atomic bombs in Japan, the only time there was nuclear war. Kennedy and Johnson, Democrats, got us, troop wise, directly involved in Vietnam. Clinton ordered the high tech bombing of Kosovo. What party are you refering to as the party of war.Abortion rights are a plank in the Democratic party platform since the 1970's. Although being an Independent,as well as peaceful, I know which party I WON'T be voting for this November. And the Tea Partiers are right and they are moving in the direction of Subsidiarity.
cq
2 years ago
I did not see the show, but I feel that O'Reilly, by using "potential", meant the "potential life" that would have developed if not been aborted. Is this not a play on words?? I really think just by listening to O'Reilly all these years that he knows when life begins. He did not mean "potential life" in the womb, he meant potential life for that child, it that child had been given the opportunity to live.
DLL
2 years ago
One lives to develop their potential,but they must be allowed to live a lifetime to accomplish it.

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