Headlines around the nation and the world trumpeted the fact that the U.S. approved the first “ethically acceptable” human stem cell lines Dec. 1.

“Ethical” in this case applies to the fact that the stem cell lines in question were all derived from “leftover” embryos at fertility clinics donated with full parental consent.

Repeated checks of the Internet reveal that the contradictory turn of phrase immediately began flowing seamlessly from one media genre to another, insinuating itself as easily and artfully into the lexicon as “pro-choice” once had done.

It’s aging to admit to a total recall of the days when “pro-choice” became the obligatory mainstream media phrase on abortion issues and “pro-life” became anathema, but so it goes.

As I recall, some wily reporters back then got away with the term pro-life from time to time by embedding it in a direct quote. In the outlets I worked for, though, as often as not, use of "pro-life" consigned the entire direct quote to the cutting room floor.

This time around, it would have been so reassuring to see even a bit of a flap in the mainstream media over the assault to the lexicon, even a minor tug-of-war, but a weird sense of consensus has emerged.

Article after article focuses on the ethical acceptability of the 13 lines, quoting without exception, Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health who says they represent an acceptable compromise.

Take, as but one example, this quote from Reuters, with Collins saying the NIH-approved lines show the “broad consensus among most of the public…is that stem cell research of this ethically acceptable kind should go forward…these embryos were derived under an ethically sound consent process.”

He went on to describe the first 13 lines as “open and shut cases” and said another 96 lines are under consideration. More approvals can be expected sooner rather than later, he said. “I think people are champing at the bit,” Reuters quoted Collins as saying. “This is the first down payment in what is going to be a much longer list of such lines.”

Failing an outcry from the general public, he’s probably right.

Father Tad Pacholczyk, director of Education at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, is hoping that such an outcry will be forthcoming. “I think that grass roots letter writing to challenge the misappropriation of the language would be good,” Father Pacholczyk said during a phone interview.

“This is something that honest (media outlets) need to look at and letter writing is one of the few things you can do,” said Father Pacholczyk, the author of the column “Making Sense out of Bioethics”.

There’s a need, he said, to challenge coverage that “attempts to appropriate the language. This decision is actually opposed to what we mean by good ethics and misappropriating the language is something we have seen repetitively happen in abortion and bioethics,” he said.

“It’s a matter of raising consciousness and asking why is it ethically acceptable if (the research) requires (human) embryos.”

Classifying the embryos as “surplus or supernumerary” is a flawed argument, he said. “You have to call attention to that fact. There is no such thing as a surplus child who doesn’t matter. Every child matters…it is never ethical for parents to give consent to destroy their own children. Calling it ethical doesn’t make it so.”