Old Story, News To Me

Last week while listening to NPR report on the Senate passage of the partial-birth abortion bill the national announcer introduced the segment with a smidge of Orwellian Newspeak. He stated that abortion language is too loaded and in the interest of neutrality, clarity and objectivity NPR has a standard of referring to pro-life as "anti-abortion activists" or "abortion foes/opponents" and pro-choice as "abortion rights proponents or advocates." Huh? Apparently clarity means something different to NPR than it is commonly accepted because labeling one group as "anti" and "foes" and "opponents" while labeling the other as "rights proponents" and "advocates" is to weight common language. In a simple Google search I found this policy officially stated by one Peggy Girshman, deputy managing editor of NPR News, during the time of Roe v. Wade's 30th anniversary.