A friend summarised one airline's preflight safety message as: "in the event of emergency, do tai chi". Laughing pilots joke with baristas about hard nights and order double-shot coffees while we're told how to exit through escape chutes!

Funnily enough, or not really, the cigarette industry have been forced to do the opposite. 'Smoking kills!' - the packages shout at you in cancerous full-colour. Is bald truth more effective than euphemism? It's preferable to the glamourous lies of last century's tobacco ads.

I write with some hesitancy in a short column like this but the NSW debate around abortion has affected me. It too has been mired in euphemisms.

'Terminating a pregnancy' is terminating a human life. 'A right to choose' what exactly? Can we call it what it is: a right to choose my life and wellbeing over the unborn baby. 'Bodily autonomy' except for the autonomy of the voiceless distinct body inside.

This is a tragic broken world and a complex discussion. But can we call things what they are?

St Paul's Anglican Church meets on Sundays at 9am with kids church. All welcome.