Today’s nitpicking of the day is how media outlets use the misleading term “stem cell opponents,” as in today’s N.Y. Times headline, “From Stem Cell Opponents, an Embryo Crusade.” As in, what do pro-lifers have against stem cells? Pro-lifers aren’t even stem cell research opponents, as many reporters suggest. They are embryo-destruction opponents, not “stem cell opponents.” This isn’t just a lingo dispute. This is an accuracy dispute.

The lingo dispute is touched on in Pam Belluck’s story where “conservative Christians” are using the term “embryo adoption,” which “irritates the fertility industry, abortion rights advocates and supporters of embryonic stem cell research, who believe that the language suggests — erroneously, they maintain — that an embryo has the same status as a child.” The reporter does not seem to discover that calling one side “conservative Christians” and the other side nonpartisan research supporters is irritating to some.