Another word losing its meaning

I read with interest a rather critical assessment of Richard Pryor. It rightfully pointed out he brought crudity and crassness to a new low. He allowed certain words to enter the public discourse and added a lot of blue language to the public discourse.
Some of his influence is still felt today. One of the jokes (and excuses for a fight) in Rush Hour with Chris Rock and Jackie Chan is when Chan imitates Rock by saying, "What's up, my nigger?"
Without the influence of Pryor it is doubtful that would have been acceptable as a joke in a mainstream comedy. When you hear Rock say it, it seems right, yet when Chan utters it you recognize it for what it is...a vicious, demeaning, racist, angry, and even violent word. Yet it is a word uttered more and more frequently by numerous public figures. Usually they are entertainers...movie stars, musicians, comedians. That makes it "okay". Or not.
At the same time, many whites have adapted "gringo" almost as a badge of honor. It isn't. It is just as nasty, filthy and degrading as any of the other various racist terms for the various races.
These words have lost their meaning. Other examples would be the very profane and, to be fair, blasphemous, phrase "Oh my God". I find it amazing that "ass" and "damn" get censored on television but "Oh my God" can be used as frequently, as openly, as brazenly as desired. News anchors, disc jockeys, characters on sitcoms...it means no more than "WOW!" in most situations. This phrase used to be the most sacred of things. Is the world a better place now that it has no meaning or is the world just less respectful, courteous, and with meaningful manners?
And robbing words of their meaning does have an impact on life. Take abortion, for instance. People very carefully, very deliberately choose the terms they use to define their position. "Pro-life" sounds "better" than "anti-abortion". They MEAN the same thing. "Pro-choice" likewise sounds "better" than "pro-abortion". They also MEAN the same thing.
The dynamics of naming the positions then change the meaning of other terms. People argue about what constitutes life, what the meaning of life is...and the debate expands to include euthanasia, capitol punishment, warfare, and similar things.
I was reading an article one a study done that seems to show women who had abortions show long lasting ill effects mentally while women who miscarry are worse off mentally short term but better off long-term. One of the women interviewed said, when speaking of an abortion, that the "potential baby"...well, the rest of what she said really isn't important. That is how far the debate has descended.
By the time you whack your baby, it is not a "potential" any longer. But by changing terms from "baby" to "fetus", by making it seem clinical rather than a life, then the emotional impact, the reality of what is taking place changes. The words have lost or at least weakened their meaning.
Then again, the whole debate over abortion rights has changed the meanings of words. Abortion activists will constantly talk about a "woman's right to choose" while people on the other side will use phrases such as "what about the babies' right to choose?" Instead of a debate over the sanctity of life it becomes a debate about the sanctity of a woman's body. But even here words lose their meaning.
If abortion is a "choice" involving "privacy" then certainly the male, who in these terms has just as much at stake, who impregnated the woman should have a say. After all, if that baby is born, he is on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars until the child turns 18. If finances are one of the factors women use to justify abortion, the father should have the right to demand an abortion if he so chooses and does not wish to support that child. As it stands, he has no rights or say in the life or death of the child but bears fiscal responsibility even if he wants the child to die.
woman wants child, man doesn't: child lives, man pays.
man wants child, woman doesn't: child dies. In some circumstances, man responsible for part of the procedural charges even though he wanted the child to live.
In a debate couched around "choice" that sounds awfully dicey to say the man had a choice. No, that word has lost its meaning.
And by altering those meanings, the debate is also changed. For some people it is still a debate about morality while for others it is simply an argument over privacy and choice.
Of course, relationships are dominated by words that have lost their meaning. It is amazing to me how many kids claim to have been "abused" when they were growing up, how many women claim to have been abused...everywhere you go, people have been abused.
Now, I do not mean to make light of abuse....when it genuinely occurs, it is a serious and sad thing. But for all the abuse people claim to have happened, I wonder how the world functions. There is not enough time. Then again, the things called abuse nowadays are ridiculous.
People are so mentally unstable that even a contradiction is abuse. Not allowing teenagers to grope and fondle each other is abuse. Not giving the kid a large enough allowance is abuse. Not paying enough attention to the spouse is abuse.
It is just a general term. "Oh, I was abused" is such a common phrase it has lost all meaning. People such as myself are becoming cynical about it to the point where people who are actually victims of abuse are not taken seriously because the term itself has been so abused that it is no longer credible.
And that is not right either. But it is the result of words losing their meaning. It becomes hard to take a lot of them seriously. It is like all the "innocent" people in prisons...sure, there might be a couple, but who believes them? Or the promises of politicians...they SOUND good, but do you REALLY believe they have your interests at heart?
When words lose their meaning the language gets dumbed down just a little bit and the culture becomes poorer. There are, as I believe this has shown, adverse effects. So choose your words carefully. You never know what effect a failure to do so will have.