From today's Los Angeles Times, a story about a college student who has taped Planned Parenthood employees in various states suggesting she lie about her or her boyfriend's age after she posed as a 13-year-old seeking an abortion.
Journalists might note the absurd linguistic hoops the Times copy editors are willing to leap through in order to avoid the term "pro-life," preferring "anti-abortion" or the hardly neutral "abortion foe" (one wonders: where is the abortion fan?). Reading this story reminded me of the 2004 review in the Times of a Richard Strauss opera in which reviewer Mard Swed's description of "Die Frau Ohne Schatten" was changed without his knowledge from a "glorious and goofy pro-life paean" to a "glorious and goofy anti-abortion paean" at the copy desk. (Read it here). Swed, of course, meant "life-affirming," but the rules are the rules. The Times later apologized twice, once for the error and then again for suggesting in their original apology that Swed was the source of the gaffe.
Jim Keane, S.J.
