The AP Stylebook: Don’t Call Them 'Late-Term Abortions!'

George Orwell warned us about how the manipulation of language could be used to control people, and we are now seeing how dictionary publishers and the Associated Press Stylebook have been making Orwell’s vision a reality. Merriam-Webster, for example, has made several agenda-driven changes to definitions of words and phrases, including the definitions of “sexual preference,” “racism,” and even “female” and “male.” The AP Stylebook has made similar changes to how they recommend journalists report on the news, including not calling riots “riots,”, prioritizing preferred pronouns over grammatical correctness, and capitalizing “black” but not “white” regarding race.

The AP Stylebook has now ventured into the political hot potato that is abortion, and is seeking to obfuscate the practice of late-term abortion by instructing journalists not to use the term at all in favor of “abortion later in pregnancy.”

Do not use the term “late-term abortion.” The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists defines late term as 41 weeks through 41 weeks and 6 days of gestation, and abortion does not happen in this period. pic.twitter.com/KjT1k9rDSS

— APStylebook (@APStylebook) December 6, 2022

The Associated Press cites the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which defines late-term pregnancy as “41 weeks through 41 weeks and 6 days” and insists that abortions do not occur at this stage in pregnancy, but this is misleading. For starters, late-term abortion is not a standardized medical term, but has traditionally meant abortions performed at 24 weeks (late second trimester) or later in pregnancy—when an unborn baby is typically viable outside the womb. So, the AP Stylebook is trying to move the goalposts on the definition of late-term abortion.  It is true that abortions in the second and third trimester are rare, as 88% of abortions occur in the first trimester, but they do happen. The AP Stylebook also deliberately ignores the fact that at least six states and the District of Columbia allow for abortion up until the moment of birth. While I wouldn’t doubt that an abortion at late-term pregnancy is extremely rare, radical Democrats have managed to make it legal to perform an abortion up until the moment of birth in select states. The Associated Press doesn’t want you to know this.