Word Attack: "health care"
Deceptive rhetoric, wrapped in a white coat
Heads up: This is gonna be a hard one, y’all. But when bad actors are lying about stuff that threatens life and limb, we gotta deal with it. So, take some deep breaths, say a prayer, fix yourself a cup of tea, or whatever else you do to prepare for hard conversations. And remember: we’re here to leave our groupthink bubbles, not to agree all the time!
Ready? Let’s talk about one of the most insidious linguistic and moral inversions in our contemporary political conversations: the misappropriation of the term “health care.”
Setting aside (for now!) the shortcomings of the systems we use to access medical care, let’s quickly zoom in on what those systems and providers are meant to offer. Actual health care promotes healthy living, and treats illnesses and injuries in order to extend life and help sick or injured body parts return to healthy functioning whenever possible.
But all too frequently, when ideologically-captured professionals use the term “health care,” they are deploying it as a euphemism to shore up political and financial support for risky or even flat-out violent interventions that stop otherwise-healthy bodies from functioning in a healthy manner.
Health-care-as-euphemism is regularly deployed as a thought-stopping tactic by the gender industry and its supporters, for example. As a reminder, human beings cannot change our sex, only our appearance. What gender activists and industry lobbyists refer to as “health care” often involves changing someone’s appearance by suppressing healthy hormones and administering synthetic ones, altering and/or removing healthy body parts, and sometimes replacing those healthy body parts with nonfunctional ones.
At best, we wouldn’t call interventions that change someone’s appearance “health care;” we’d call them cosmetic surgeries or procedures. But for the special interest groups who make money by selling or advocating for gender drugs and surgeries (and for people who want to get them at others’ expense), speaking honestly about the cosmetic nature of these procedures undercuts their argument for demanding that taxpayers and insurers fund them, or for donors to fund their lobbying. After all, taxpayers don’t typically have to pay for things like a woman’s breast implants because she thinks they’ll improve her life in some way. Why should we pay for a man’s breast implants? That’s not equality— that’s privilege. Consenting adults have the right to express themselves and change their appearance, but they don’t (or shouldn’t, at least) have the right to force other people to pay for it.
At worst— particularly when we consider how often novel surgical procedures and hormonal manipulation damage people’s bodies— we’re rapidly approaching something more accurately described as mutilation, commonly defined as “an act or instance of destroying, removing, or severely damaging a limb or other body part of a person or animal.” Often, the line between “cosmetic procedure” and “mutilation” as defined above is consent, and the lack of informed consent in this field is one of its most glaring scandals. Too often, individuals and families harmed by the gender industry describe being pressured into accepting interventions whose possible consequences — including brain problems, bone problems, genital atrophy and tearing, recurring infections, persistent pain, sterility, and more — they didn’t fully understand. Deceptive “health care” rhetoric manipulates people into accepting, promoting, and funding maltreatment, while obscuring the negligent, exploitative way this industry treats vulnerable adults, children, and their parents.
Okay, deep breaths… maybe take a movement break? Brew another cup of tea?
Still here? Then let’s turn to a far more popular example of this “health care” misdirection: abortion. Decades after legalizing what was considered at best a “necessary evil” for women and girls in truly desperate circumstances, elective abortion is now a multi-billion dollar industry with a whole parallel industry dedicated to manufacturing public support and funding for it. This is only possible because abortion industry proponents work very hard to minimize and normalize the violence they profit from by rebranding it as “health care.”
But as I’ve said elsewhere1, intentionally dismembering, poisoning, and/or starving a defenseless human being does not magically become “health care” just because a doctor or pharmaceuticals may be involved. When procedures like a D&C or a D&E are performed to clear a mother’s uterus and prevent infection after her child’s unintentional death in her womb, that’s health care. When intentionally performed on a living child in her womb, they are acts of violence. When certain drugs are administered to treat or study things like gynecological cancers or endometriosis, that’s health care. But when they’re given to intentionally poison, starve, and expel a developing child from the womb, that’s an act of violence.
Not a single law enacted or proposed anywhere in the United States prevents doctors from treating obstetric emergencies like ectopic pregnancies or miscarriages. But abortion proponents regularly lie about tragic situations like these in order to scare otherwise skeptical voters into supporting laws that allow abortion on demand for any reason. They also lie to obscure the dangers of abortion drugs and procedures, and lobby against collecting and reporting relevant safety data. Genuine health care preserves and extends lives. Abortion ends lives— not only those of children in the womb, but more often than its advocates want to acknowledge, their mothers, too. Though people may have other reasons why they support abortion, there is no medical rationale for deliberately ending innocent human lives.
Honest conversations are essential for good personal decision making and public policy making. Instead of repeating deceptive language propagated by industry operatives, let’s kindly and respectfully call things what they are. (And if you’re someone who promotes harmful practices rebranded as “health care,” please reconsider. If you have to use euphemisms in order to advocate for your cause, that is a giant clue that what you’re advocating for is wrong.)
When talking with people using “health care” as a euphemism, ask them what they mean. Many people reflexively repeat industry talking points because they’ve never taken the time to research or think through the grisly implications of what they’re supporting. By asking them to describe what they’re talking about, you can create opportunities for critical thinking by helping them notice gaps in their knowledge or logic, or challenge more deliberate deceivers to defend their positions on honest terms.
We must also recognize that many people hide behind these euphemisms because they feel (or are trying to avoid feeling) deep pain, shame, and regret about their own past actions. Be kind and gracious when you sense that’s the case, but still speak truthfully. You may be the only person in their life who is willing to do so, and if/when they are ready to be honest with themselves about their choices, they need to know who might be a safe person with whom they can talk or investigate the truth. Plant a seed of truth by speaking plainly about the reality of these drugs and procedures and then move on; don’t try to force people past their comfort zone all at once. There is grace, healing, and redemption for even our worst decisions, but only when we’re honest enough to confront them as such.
A heads up to any irate abortion supporters reading this: Before you go running to my DMs or contact form to shake your fist at me for what you assume I don’t know about this issue, understand that I am speaking from deep experience as well as research. I was deceived into ending my first pregnancy by ER doctors who claimed my fertility and/or life was at risk if I didn’t. I have literally lived through the kind of emergency abortion advocates —including my own former self — exploit to justify their advocacy. I also used to work for one of our country’s leading abortion advocacy organizations, and had several others as clients earlier in my work as a consultant. I have almost certainly encountered whatever argument, scenario, or vitriol you’re preparing to unload. Instead, please take some deep breaths and ask yourself (and/or a trustworthy friend or counselor) why you’re so incensed by a factual argument about this issue.