{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,31]],"date-time":"2026-08-31T18:13:22Z","timestamp":1788200002397,"version":"build-2803163510"},"reference-count":29,"publisher":"BMJ","content-domain":{"domain":["bmj.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Med Humanities"],"accepted":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,3]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>\n                    The language used to describe the ending of a pregnancy is contested, and the contest has consequences for stigma, recognition and access to care. In English, the late twentieth-century shift from \u2018spontaneous abortion\u2019 to \u2018miscarriage\u2019 is often told as growing compassion. Comparing English with Italian, French and German, I argue that the shift is better understood as the relocation of stigma rather than its removal. English, having no separate everyday word for miscarriage, engineered a shift through deliberate professional reform. French and German did so centuries ago. Italian never developed one and relies on a single term,\n                    <jats:italic>aborto<\/jats:italic>\n                    , for both miscarriage and abortion. Yet none of these words is neutral. Each locates a judgement somewhere: in the failing body, in the falseness of the loss or in a moral hierarchy of deservingness. To name a pregnancy ending is to classify it, and classification is never neutral: it takes a position on what was lost, and what was lost is precisely what remains contested. The rejection of much clinical vocabulary by people with lived experience, the emergence of new terms such as the German\n                    <jats:italic>kleine Geburt<\/jats:italic>\n                    (\u2018little birth\u2019), and live debate in France over\n                    <jats:italic>fausse couche<\/jats:italic>\n                    suggest that the search for adequate language is ongoing everywhere and raise the question of who is consulted. The task is not to choose better among inherited words but to keep making new ones, attentive to whose voices are present, across clinical, public and creative practice.\n                  <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1136\/medhum-2026-014343","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,31]],"date-time":"2026-08-31T17:20:19Z","timestamp":1788196819000},"page":"medhum-2026-014343","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1136\/crossmarkpolicy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Evolving and contested vocabulary of abortion and miscarriage: inconsistencies across English, Italian, French and German"],"prefix":"10.1136","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7678-5025","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Samuel","family":"Yosef","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Interdisciplinary Humanities, King\u2019s College London, London, UK"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"239","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,31]]},"reference":[{"key":"2026083110201228000_medhum-2026-014343v1.1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1136\/medhum-2012-010284"},{"key":"2026083110201228000_medhum-2026-014343v1.2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"425","DOI":"10.1353\/pbm.2006.0040","article-title":"What\u2019s in a Name? Death before birth","volume":"49","author":"Jutel","year":"2006","journal-title":"Perspect Biol Med"},{"key":"2026083110201228000_medhum-2026-014343v1.3","unstructured":"Oxford Latin Dictionary.1968. Available: http:\/\/archive.org\/details\/aa.-vv.-oxford-latin-dictionary-1968"},{"key":"2026083110201228000_medhum-2026-014343v1.4","unstructured":"Lewis CT , Short C . A Latin Dictionary: Founded on Andrews\u2019 Edition of Freund\u2019s Latin Dictionary. Clarendon Press, 1879. Available: http:\/\/www.perseus.tufts.edu\/hopper\/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0059:entry=aborior"},{"key":"2026083110201228000_medhum-2026-014343v1.5","unstructured":"Miscarriage, n. In: Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press, 2023. Available: https:\/\/www.oed.com\/dictionary\/miscarriage_n"},{"key":"2026083110201228000_medhum-2026-014343v1.6","unstructured":"Harper D . Etymology of Miscarriage. Online Etymology Dictionary, 2001. Available: https:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/word\/miscarriage"},{"key":"2026083110201228000_medhum-2026-014343v1.7","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1136\/medhum-2021-012373"},{"key":"2026083110201228000_medhum-2026-014343v1.8","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.ajog.2022.12.315"},{"key":"2026083110201228000_medhum-2026-014343v1.9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"236","DOI":"10.3138\/jld-2025-1007","article-title":"\u201cIt Just Made Me Feel Very Broken\u201d: Misogyny and Discriminatory Hierarchisation in British English Pregnancy Loss Terminology","volume":"9","author":"Malory","year":"2025","journal-title":"J Lang Discrim"},{"key":"2026083110201228000_medhum-2026-014343v1.10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"87","DOI":"10.1007\/s10691-019-09419-w","article-title":"Abortion in Italy: Forty Years On","volume":"28","author":"Caruso","year":"2020","journal-title":"Fem Leg Stud"},{"key":"2026083110201228000_medhum-2026-014343v1.11","unstructured":"De Mauro T . Aborto. Internazionale,"},{"key":"2026083110201228000_medhum-2026-014343v1.12","unstructured":"Istituto della Enciclopedia I . Aborto. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana,"},{"key":"2026083110201228000_medhum-2026-014343v1.13","unstructured":"Ministero della Salute . Interruzione volontaria di gravidanza. Available: https:\/\/www.salute.gov.it\/new\/it\/tema\/salute-della-donna\/interruzione-volontaria-di-gravidanza\/ [Accessed 16 Jul 2026]."},{"key":"2026083110201228000_medhum-2026-014343v1.14","unstructured":"Le Robert . Fausse Couche. In: Dictionnaire Le Robert . \u00c9ditions Le Robert,"},{"key":"2026083110201228000_medhum-2026-014343v1.15","unstructured":"DWDS . Fehlgeburt. In: Digitales W\u00f6rterbuch Der Deutschen Sprache (DWDS) . Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften,"},{"key":"2026083110201228000_medhum-2026-014343v1.16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"756","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jgyn.2014.09.010","article-title":"Standardisation de la terminologie des pertes de grossesse: consensus d\u2019experts du Coll\u00e8ge national des gyn\u00e9cologues et obst\u00e9triciens fran\u00e7ais (CNGOF)","volume":"43","author":"Delabaere","year":"2014","journal-title":"J Gynecol Obstet Biol Reprod"},{"key":"2026083110201228000_medhum-2026-014343v1.17","unstructured":"Deutsche Gesellschaft f\u00fcr Gyn\u00e4kologie und Geburtshilfe (DGGG) . Diagnostik und therapie von frauen mit wiederholten spontanaborten. Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Wissenschaftlichen Medizinischen Fachgesellschaften (AWMF); 2022. Available: https:\/\/register.awmf.org\/de\/leitlinien\/detail\/015-050"},{"key":"2026083110201228000_medhum-2026-014343v1.18","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"59","DOI":"10.1007\/s11614-022-00470-7","article-title":"Der Wandel der Anerkennung von Fehl- und Totgeburt als Geburt eines Kindes","volume":"47","author":"B\u00f6cker","year":"2022","journal-title":"\u00d6sterreich Z Soziol"},{"key":"2026083110201228000_medhum-2026-014343v1.19","unstructured":"Mieux accompagner les pertes pr\u00e9coces de grossesse. Profession Sage-Femme, Available: https:\/\/profession-sage-femme.com\/mieux-accompagner-les-pertes-precoces-de-grossesse\/ [Accessed 16 Jul 2026]."},{"key":"2026083110201228000_medhum-2026-014343v1.20","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Ziegler M . Personhood: The New Civil War over Reproduction. Yale University Press, 2025. Available: http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/10.2307\/jj.26193499","DOI":"10.12987\/9780300281644"},{"key":"2026083110201228000_medhum-2026-014343v1.21","article-title":"Pregnancy Loss, & Subjective Fetal Personhood","volume":"75","author":"Donley","year":"2022","journal-title":"Vanderbilt Law Rev"},{"key":"2026083110201228000_medhum-2026-014343v1.22","unstructured":"Ross LJ , Solinger R . Reproductive Justice: An Introduction. University of California Press, 2017."},{"key":"2026083110201228000_medhum-2026-014343v1.23","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Cecil R , ed. Anthropology of Pregnancy Loss: Comparative Studies in Miscarriage, Stillbirth and Neo-Natal Death. Routledge, 2020.","DOI":"10.4324\/9781003135722"},{"key":"2026083110201228000_medhum-2026-014343v1.24","unstructured":"Kleinman A . Rethinking Psychiatry: From Cultural Category to Personal Experience. Free Press, 1988:237."},{"key":"2026083110201228000_medhum-2026-014343v1.25","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pgph.0001420","article-title":"Explanatory models of stillbirth among bereaved parents in Afghanistan: Implications for stillbirth prevention","volume":"3","author":"Christou","year":"2023","journal-title":"PLOS Glob Public Health"},{"key":"2026083110201228000_medhum-2026-014343v1.26","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Bowker GC , Star SL . Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences. MIT Press, 2000.doi:10.7551\/mitpress\/6352.001.0001","DOI":"10.7551\/mitpress\/6352.001.0001"},{"key":"2026083110201228000_medhum-2026-014343v1.27","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"471","DOI":"10.1111\/1471-0528.70057","article-title":"Acceptable Nomenclature for Pregnancy Loss Care: A Cross-Sectional Observational Survey","volume":"133","author":"Malory","year":"2026","journal-title":"BJOG"},{"key":"2026083110201228000_medhum-2026-014343v1.28","unstructured":"BSACP . Position statement: training in uterine evacuation and abortion care. Available: https:\/\/bsacp.org.uk\/resources\/bsacp-position-statements\/ [Accessed 16 Jul 2026]."},{"key":"2026083110201228000_medhum-2026-014343v1.29","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"449","DOI":"10.1016\/j.whi.2024.05.004","article-title":"Navigating Miscarriage Management Post-Dobbs: Health Risks and Ethical Dilemmas","volume":"34","author":"Nandi","year":"2024","journal-title":"Womens Health Issues"}],"container-title":["Medical Humanities"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/syndication.highwire.org\/content\/doi\/10.1136\/medhum-2026-014343","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,31]],"date-time":"2026-08-31T17:20:22Z","timestamp":1788196822000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/mh.bmj.com\/lookup\/doi\/10.1136\/medhum-2026-014343"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,31]]},"references-count":29,"alternative-id":["10.1136\/medhum-2026-014343"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1136\/medhum-2026-014343","relation":{},"ISSN":["1468-215X","1473-4265"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1468-215X","type":"print"},{"value":"1473-4265","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,31]]}}}