While surfing around slate.com this afternoon, waiting for our server to come back on line, I came across this article. One of the things I simultaneously love and loath about the English language is it’s ability to be manipulated. Simply changing around a word or phrase can alter the meaning and intention drastically. While this fascinates me because it means our language is so amazingly malleable, it also scares me, because it seems that so few people recognize this. Instead of being able to dissect what is being said or written, many times we just accept it as is. What worries me about this case, is that it makes it so easy for a state to simply ignore the laws that are currently in place, and by co-oping a word and attaching its own meaning, use the law to push a “moral” agenda.
I certainly believe that proper medical information should be available and provided to all patients regardless of procedure they are wishing to have performed. I think it is a patient’s right to correct and unbiased facts to help her make a decision that is right for her. I do not believe that a doctor should EVER make a patient feel guilty for anything. This law clearly makes it OK for doctors to essentially become moral judges and to use guilt as a means to prevent women from making a choice that is legally theirs to make. Not only that, but this law will require some doctors to tell their patients things they do not believe. How is this right?Â
A big thumbs down to South Dakota.
