'We're Having a Fetus!': Powerful Campaign Exposes 'Antiseptic Scientific Terms' Used to 'Dehumanize a Child'

Christian ministry Focus on the Family is preparing to unveil a new pro-life ad forcing people to pause, ponder, and reflect on how language is used to describe the unborn.

Listen to the latest episode of CBN’s Quick Start podcast

The 60-second spot, “It’s Still a Baby,” showcases individuals and families discussing unborn children in various heartwarming scenarios.

But rather than using the term “baby,” each scene awkwardly — and intentionally — features expectant mothers and fathers saying “fetus.”

“It’s positive! We’re having a fetus!” one emotional woman proclaims after taking a pregnancy test and telling the father.

Another mom, while staring at her unborn baby on a sonogram screen, says, “Hi, fetus.” And yet another expectant woman dons a shirt that reads, “Fetus on board.”

A voiceover acknowledges the bizarre terminology in light of the emotive scenes, with the narrator proclaiming: “Call it what you want, but the truth does not change.”

Watch the powerful video:

Focus on the Family President Jim Daly told CBN’s Faithwire the national ad campaign will roll out Wednesday, with the organization hoping the contents help reach people who will be “struck by the logic and the truth the spot depicts that it is, indeed, a baby.”

Daly said his organization is always looking for ways to send a compelling message, with the spot rolling out just before the first anniversary of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court case that legalized abortion across the country. Last year’s Dobbs decision sent abortion back to the states.

“We’re always looking for compelling ways, even unexpected ways, to get the country talking about life,” Daly said. “And with the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision striking down Roe v. Wade coming June 24, this was the perfect moment to add this important perspective to the national conversation.”

The ministry leader said Focus on the Family wants to counter the apathetic trend through something with the power to permeate hearts and minds.

“The culture has gotten too comfortable using antiseptic scientific terms to dehumanize a child in the womb,” Daly said. “We wanted to challenge that by plainly and simply showing — in situations we’re all familiar with — that it’s a baby. And to call it anything else just doesn’t make sense.”

He wants people to recognize that calling an unborn baby a “fetus” isn’t a proper descriptor, as everyone truly knows the unborn child is a human life.

“Words are powerful things,” Daly explained. “They mean something. They matter. They are the building blocks of our understanding of our world, how we understand our world.”

While he said the debate over life is “intense” in America, the nonprofit leader hopes to help move the conversation in the right direction — something he believes demands the proper language.

“To have truly informed discussions on that issue, we have to be sure we’re using the right words,” Daly said. “As the audience reaction to this commercial makes clear, to call a developing child anything but a baby simply doesn’t make sense to most people.”