One of the favorite tactics of those committing genocide (and racists) is to dehumanize the victims. By downplaying the victims' humanity it makes it easier to deprive them of basic rights and, in many cases, to kill them. Indeed, this tactic is identified as one of the Ten Stages of Genocide,
One of the ways to dehumanized is to use language to portray the victims as subhuman or not human.
Some historical examples:
Native Americans - Savages or Lice
Slaves - Property
Tutsis (during the Rwandan genocide) - Cockroaches
Jews (by Nazis) - Rats or Vermin
More recently, we see this in the debate over abortion. Proponents of abortion (who hide behind such euphemisms as "choice" or "reproductive health care") realized they could not refer to the unborn child as human in any way in order to make the killing of this child easier to accept. Hence the unborn children, the victims, are often referred to just as "Fetuses," "Products of Conception," or, more recently, "ZEFs."
In using language to dehumanize unborn children the promoters of abortion are unconsciously following the examples of their genocidal and racist forebears.
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