Humanizing Language Humanizes Us

Gov. Ralph Northam, Pediatric Neurologist

We now live in a world where the cold-blooded murder of a newborn baby is publicly defended. Over the past two weeks we have seen not one, not two, but dozens of America’s elected leaders defend the indefensible.

It started with Governor Ralph Northam of Virginia giving his opinion of what should happen in the labor/delivery room if a child was born with abnormalities. He said, “I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated, if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother. And so, I think this is really blown out of proportion. But again, we want the government not to be involved in these types of decisions.”

In Northam’s delivery room a newborn child is being swaddled by nurses while the mother and the physician decide whether, or not, to kill her. He asserts that the government should have nothing to say about that decision.

In 2002 the U.S. Congress passed by unanimous consent the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act which explicitly states that the child in Northam’s delivery room, or in an abortionist’s clinic, is recognized by the federal government as a “person,” a “human being,” a “child” and an “individual.” Now, he is publicly asserting that government should have nothing to say in defense of that person’s life.

This is the bright red line that was crossed last week. Once an elected official claims that certain persons, individuals or human beings are outside the protection of law, he has called into question whether the government will protect any person, individual or human being.

How did we get here? The answer lies in words. Words do not only communicate ideas, they shape our thinking. Actually, it goes even deeper than that. The words we use affect our psyche, our soul, the deepest places in our hearts.


When you consistently and systematically deny humanity or personhood to any human being, it shapes the way that you think about him. It is not possible just to flip the switch and think differently from one minute to the next.

In this case, we are talking about an ideology that strictly forbids referring to the unborn in human or relational terms. We can call it a fetus or an embryo, but we dare not refer to it as a child or a person. We can refer to a pregnant woman, but we dare not call her a mother.

This sterile and passionless language is necessary if we wish to maintain that Roe v. Wade is right and just. The difficulty we are experiencing as a society is how and when to start calling an inhuman and unrelated thing by the humanizing and relational language of mother and child.

Whether we propose to flip that switch at “viability” or “birth” or “after the mother and physician have had a discussion,” it is an arbitrary decision.

Worse, it is impossible for the human psyche to turn on a dime. Once we have talked about somebody in dehumanizing language, hearts are conditioned to think and feel less than humanely about him.

Sen. Lynn Hutchings

That, essentially, is Gov. Northam’s problem. Once he has thought of the baby he is delivering as inhuman until the moment of birth, he finds it impossible to treat her humanely only five minutes after birth. It’s not just his problem. It’s ours, as well.

While Northam was claiming that the government has no place in protecting the born-alive child, Wyoming’s Senate was debating the government’s place in protecting the unborn child. Once again, the issue came down to language.

Senator Lynn Hutchings (R-Cheyenne) sponsored SF 128 Unborn victims of violence act. It would have made it possible to charge a person with murder who killed an unborn child, except in the act of an abortion.

It seems like an obvious compromise. Women who chose abortion are not affected, while women who chose life have that choice recognized in Wyoming Statute. The problem was that it used the term “unborn child.” When the Senate Judiciary Committee heard the bill, Liisa Anselmi-Dalton, D-Rock Springs, offered a three-page amendment to the bill. It did two main things to the wording.

First, it deleted every reference to “an unborn child” and replaced it with “a fetus.” Hutchings’ bill had defined “unborn child” as “the offspring of human beings from conception to birth.” But the amendment left “fetus” undefined. Perhaps this was an oversight. Or, perhaps a clear definition of “fetus” would have required the word “human” -- precisely what “fetus” is meant to avoid.

Since Webster’s Dictionary defines fetus as “an unborn or unhatched vertebrate,” one could envision an animal rights activist using this lack of specificity to prosecute the killing of an unborn vertebrate. More to the point, this is precisely the kind of dehumanizing term that led to Northam’s infanticidal remarks.

Liisa Anselmi-Dalton

Anselmi-Dalton’s amendment also deleted every occurrence of the phrase “mother of the unborn child” and replaced it with “a pregnant woman.” Mother and child are relational terms. “Pregnant woman” is deliberately non-relational.


One cannot admit the existence of a relationship before birth if one will not admit the existence of a person before birth. The two go hand-in-hand. Wyoming women who do recognize and cherish the relationship with their unborn children, are still denied any recognition of that relationship in Wyoming law.

One curious consequence of replacing “mother” with “pregnant woman” is what it did to the “Exclusions” section. Hutchings’ bill said, “nothing in this act shall apply to any act committed by the mother of an unborn child.” The amendment made it, “nothing in this act shall apply to any act committed by a pregnant woman.”

By not specifying the relationship of mother and child, it would have allowed any pregnant woman at all, to kill the fetus of another pregnant woman without prosecution. Don’t think that is far-fetched. Any competent defense attorney would see it in a heartbeat.

Certainly, that was an unintended loophole. But how do you close it without recognizing that a pregnant woman has a relationship with the specific child in her womb that no other pregnant woman has with that child? What do you call that relationship, if not motherhood?

The amendment was adopted. But the following Monday the full Senate deleted it. Then the Senate defeated the entire bill (11-18). Many said that they were confused. I don’t think the bill’s language was all that confusing. The confusion, rather, rests upon our entire culture.

Attitudes toward persons under law have been changed through a long and sustained campaign of deleting words that recognize the humanity of the unborn and the natural relationship that exists long before birth. Now we are having difficulty as a nation, recognizing those same realities after birth and beyond.

That confusion has given us a government that is not sure whether it has a duty to protect every person, individual and human being. What can we do to regain the certainty that has been lost?

The first thing to do is to stop lying to ourselves. One cannot dehumanize something for months on end without affecting the deepest places of our own humanity. Words not only mean things. They do things to us. They can elevate us as we elevate others. Or they can debase us as we debase others.

It’s time that our national conversation reflect this truth. We should start by using humanizing language in Wyoming law.

Editor's Note:
A previous version of this article misidentified the author of the amendment. The amendment offered by Anselmi-Dalton was approved by the Judiciary committee and undersigned by the chair of the committee, regrettably I mistook Chairman Nethercott's signature for authorship of the amendment.