You Say Person, I Say Property: Does It Really Matter What We Call an Embryo?

William P. Cheshire (2004) raises interesting questions about the labeling of embryos in the news media. Although I agree "concerned readers should take notice ... [of] prejudicial and disparaging language," I disagree both with his statement of the problem and with his proposed solution.

One cannot help but notice that Cheshire falls into the same trap of which he accuses journalists—he clearly has a skewed focus, and this colors his evaluation of the empirical data. He refers to embryos as a "category of humanity," "vulnerable human life," "human subjects," and "nascent human life," all terms that qualify under his framework as affirmatively upgrading the moral valuation of the human embryo. Contrary to what Cheshire implies, one might be just as disturbed by media reports of embryos framed in terms of "killing tiny human beings" as those framed in terms of "destruction of property"—neither represents a neutral or completely accurate description of the issue. I'd challenge Cheshire to demonstrate the "higher standard of truth and fairness" rather than simply to promote his own personal viewpoint regarding the status of embryos.

While I find it ironic that Cheshire uses such language given his apparent distaste for the "skewed linguistic distribution," it is emblematic of the larger concern he raises. Contrary to Cheshire's claim, so-called "biased" language might be both inevitable and even appropriate when discussing embryo research. The journalistic stumbling that Cheshire describes as valuing or devaluing moral status is a product of the current confusion regarding the appropriate categorization of human embryos. These are not neutral issues, and almost all words will have positive or negative connotations.

Even Cheshire recognizes that the articles that attempted to use neutral language "adopted a sterile tone unsuited" for the discussion. Without public consensus regarding the underlying issues, it is hard to see how any labeling will fail to be biased in one direction or another. At best we might hope for less inflammatory language. But this might miss the point altogether. Skewed language might be appropriate. News media is quite often biased. No one was surprised in the 2000 U.S. presidential election to find that the New York Times endorsed Al Gore, while the Cleveland Plain Dealer endorsed George W. Bush. In fact, it might be more instructional to use "biased" language in news reporting because such language makes clear the author's biases. In fact, empirical studies show that people are extremely wary of news reporting and might expect different commentators to slant their presentations based upon their underlying goals (Newport and Saad 1998; Bennett, Rhine, and Flickinger 2001). It is not at all obvious that journalists are supposed to be neutral in public-policy debates, even if we think they could be.

So what role should journalists and popular media play in this and other bioethics debates? Here I agree with Cheshire that sensationalist reporting does a disservice to the public. Early research results should be cautiously reported. Despite the amazing headlines over the past few years, we have seen little if anything in the way of treatment for diseases based upon embryonic stem cell research. But if journalists have an obligation to report accurate facts, scientists and ethicists (and other professionals involved in these areas) have an obligation to learn how to communicate through the media. It is surprising to me how little professionals understand about the time and space limits of news reporting. There are ways to package information so that it will be most useful to journalists who are trying to disseminate it—the onus to distill pertinent information should not be on only the news media.

Finally, although words do matter, perhaps they do not matter as much as one might think. Changing the words used is not likely to determine the outcome of the human embryo research debate. As Cheshire notes, Stanford...