Glossary

Abortifacient: A drug or device that can be used to kill a preborn baby boy or girl (e.g., methotrexate).

Abortion: Murder; embryocide; feticide; homicide; killing (ending the life of) a preborn child.

Abortion mill (also abortion facility, abortuary, abortuarium): A place where the act of abortion occurs.

Bioethics: A sub-field of ethics, bioethics stands alongside many other theories of ethics, e.g., egoism, situation ethics and relativism. Bioethics is defined as a normative ethical theory - i.e., it takes a stand on what is right or wrong.

Chemical abortion: An act of abortion that involves the use of certain drugs to end the life of a preborn child

Contraception (also birth control, family planning): A drug or device designed to be used before, during or after sexual relations to deliberately prevent pregnancy. Caution, please, as the most popular forms of so-called contraception are actually abortifacient (e.g. pill, IUD, Norplant, Depo-Provera, emergency contraception)

Dilation and extraction (also D&E, partial-birth abortion): The gradual dilation of the mother's cervix, followed by the delivery of the entire baby except for her head, which remains in the birth canal until the baby's skull is punctured with scissors and the baby's brains are suctioned out. The remainder of the baby's body is then delivered.

Embryo: Human embryology teaches that the embryonic period of human development begins on the first day of the third week, after the two-week zygotic period ends. Technically, the human being progresses from human zygote (weeks 1 and 2) to human embryo (weeks 3 through 8) to human fetus (week 9 to birth). From his or her conception, the human being is a person.

Ethical stem cell research: The use umbilical cord blood or of tissue from born human beings to develop cures for disease and ailments. The removal of this tissue does not result in the death of the donor, as occurs when stem cells are removed from embryonic human beings.

Eugenics: The purported science of improvement of the human race through better breeding and purification. Eugenic medicine is practice today by killing preborn babies as early as a "defect" is identified.

Euthanasia: The act of imposing death on another; also known as assisted suicide, mercy killing; includes the withholding of artificially-provided nutrition and/or hydration from those deemed unfit to continue living.

Fetus: A preborn baby boy or girl from the beginning of the ninth week of life in the womb until birth.

Human cloning: Human cloning is accomplished by introducing the nucleus from a human somatic (body) cell into an egg cell whose nucleus has been removed, hence the term somatic cell nuclear transfer. This process produces a human embryo who is, genetically, virtually identical to an existing or previously existing human being. Human cloning is immoral and unethical.

Human embryonic stem cell research: Unethical research that uses tissues harvested from preborn children who die as a result of the harvesting process (see ethical stem cell research).

In vitro fertilization (IVF): A scientific process that generates human life in a laboratory petri dish. Nine out of every ten human embryos created during IVF procedures are intentionally killed, used for research that results in their death, or thrown away.

Morning-after pill: A regimen of four birth control pills that will kill the human embryo if conception has occurred prior to the ingestion of the pills.

Population control: Programs based on the theory that eliminating poor people's progeny is preferable to providing them with training to enhance their ability to care for their children.

Post-abortion syndrome (also post-abortion trauma): A lingering condition affecting the physical, psychological and/or spiritual wellbeing of those affected by the act of abortion.

Pro-choice: A deceptive term that disguises a preference for destroying preborn babies by acts of abortion.

Pro-life: A respect for all innocent human beings from conception/fertilization to natural death, without compromise, exception or apology.

Reproductive health: A category of purported health care, some aspects of which are intended to render men and women sterile and/or preborn children dead.

Reproductive human cloning: The process of bringing a cloned human being through the embryonic and fetal stages to live birth.

RU-486 (also Mifeprex, mifepristone): A chemical regimen that kills human babies in the womb through the ninth week of life; it also is often dangerous to the mother as well.

Surgical abortion: The act of killing of a preborn baby girl or boy by surgical means.

Zygote: The stage of a human being's life from conception/fertilization through the second week of life; a person.