The use of language in argument is an art secularists have mastered. Many Christians often embrace a godless worldview by virtue of a lack of discernment in this area. Thus, Christians are at, a moment of truth, as they are forced to fight the culture war on enemy ground.

Consider this line from a recent article, “A disturbing number of doctors do not feel obligated to tell patients about medical options they oppose morally, such as abortion and teen birth control.”

Referring to abortion or the morning after pill as a “treatment option” frames the debate in biased terms. Treatment generally presupposes that something is wrong with a person. The use of such language blunts the reality of the subject matter and facilitates the notion that the killing of unborn children is a routine medical procedure with no ethical implications.

Such language denigrates the essential dignity that is inherent to human beings and puts them on the same plane with animals or even excess tissue to be discarded. Further, the language of ethics becomes mere artillery in the debate as ethics do not exist on a naturalist worldview.

To refer to a doctor as coercive because he won’t do a procedure; phraseology like “abandon the patient;” the reference to a disturbing number of doctors and how they hinder care; are also examples of linguistic sophistry. To speak of patients’ rights while denying an unborn child his God-given right to life is patently contradictory.

Let us be discerning of the fallacies in secularist debate that we might frame the debate with truth, that hearts and minds might be won for Christ.