Euphemisms are the refuge of moral cowardice, and no euphemism is so
cowardly or so deadly as “reduction” — a word that sounds like math, but
really means murder. The August 14, 2011 edition of The New York Times Magazine makes this fact clear in its cover story, “The Two-Minus-One Pregnancy.”
Reporter Ruth Padawer first takes her readers into the examination
room of an obstetrician who is about to abort one of two fetuses within
the womb of a woman identified as “Jenny.” Padawer writes:
As Jenny lay on the obstetrician’s examination table, she was
grateful that the ultrasound tech had turned off the overhead screen.
She didn’t want to see the two shadows floating inside her. Since
making her decision, she had tried hard not to think about them, though
she could often think of little else. She was 45 and pregnant after
six years of fertility bills, ovulation injections, donor eggs and
disappointment — and yet here she was, 14 weeks into her pregnancy,
choosing to extinguish one of two healthy fetuses, almost as if having
half an abortion. As the doctor inserted the needle into Jenny’s
abdomen, aiming at one of the fetuses, Jenny tried not to flinch,
caught between intense relief and intense guilt. Keep Reading...
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