When Words Get in the Way of Reform
Years ago, I heard G. Gordon Liddy say something that has stayed with me:
“Words are the handles we use to convey our thoughts to one another.”
That observation seems particularly relevant to the debate surrounding Florida Statute 768.21, subsection eight.
Words matter because they determine whether another person understands what we are actually trying to say. And when the objective is changing a law, poorly chosen words can do more than create misunderstanding. They can weaken the very argument we are trying to make.
Florida gubernatorial candidate James Fishback recently released an advertisement supporting repeal of subsection eight. TAG also supports repeal. But Fishback described the law by saying that a physician who commits medical malpractice “can never be sued” and then went considerably further, declaring that medical malpractice is “exactly” murder.
That is where words become a problem.
Medical malpractice is not murder, and subsection eight does not give physicians blanket immunity from lawsuits. The statute is objectionable enough without exaggerating what it does.
And exaggeration carries a strategic cost.
If an advocate accurately explains that Florida law excludes certain adult survivors from recovering specified noneconomic wrongful-death damages when the death results from medical negligence, defenders of the statute must address that policy choice.
But if the advocate instead says Florida protects murderers or allows doctors to kill without being sued, the debate changes.
Suddenly, opponents no longer have to defend the statute.
They can defend against the rhetoric.
Now the repeal advocate is defending rhetoric instead of attacking the statute.
That is precisely backwards.
Many advocates for repeal say they want their day in court. There is an important lesson in that demand. A courtroom does not decide cases according to who is angriest, who repeats an allegation most often, or who produces the most emotionally powerful slogan.
Eventually someone asks:
What can you prove?
A plaintiff carries the burden of proving the claim. An accusation is the beginning of the inquiry, not the conclusion.
Public advocacy is not a courtroom, but serious advocacy should embrace the same intellectual discipline: evidence, precision, causation, proper characterization of conduct, and a willingness to distinguish what is known from what is merely alleged.
A movement demanding the right to prove its case should not behave as though making the accusation has already proved it.
TAG does not object to inflammatory descriptions of subsection eight because we want to defend the law.
Quite the opposite.
TAG objects precisely because we want it repealed.
We do not want lawmakers spending their time debating whether medical malpractice is murder. We want them examining why certain survivors may recover wrongful-death damages when a loved one dies through ordinary negligence but may be excluded from specified noneconomic damages when the death results from medical negligence.
That is the statute.
Put that on trial.
Words are indeed handles. They allow us to carry ideas from one mind to another.
But if we choose the wrong handle, we may drop the idea before it ever reaches the person we are trying to persuade.
When the truth is sufficient, exaggeration does not strengthen the argument.
It weakens it.
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