Chase made a comment on a thread below, and it reminded me of a recent discussion I had with some of my internet fantasy baseball buddies.
I prefer to call so-called pro-lifers “anti-choice”. Why? Because when it comes to the death penalty and war, they’re usually more eager to pursue and condone the death penalty and more “willing” to accept casualties. So they’re not really “pro-life”, except where abortion is concerned. More correctly, by wanting a ban on abortion, they are trying to take a woman’s personal choice away. Hence, “Anti-Choice”.
Immediately upon saying that, it gets mentioned that I, then, am “anti-life”. Well, that’s not correct. Without even getting into the semantics of when life begins, for me to be “anti-life” I’d have to demand that EVERY prisoner be executed, EVERY soldier die, and EVERY pregancy not be allowed to come to fruition. Eventually, there wouldn’t be any “life”. That would be closer to “anti-life”.
The bottom line is that “anti-life” and “pro-life” both make zero sense. You’re either for choice, or against it. Therefore, the correct terms to describe the sides on the abortion debate are “pro-choice” and “anti-choice”.
9 responses so far ↓
1
C. J. Summers
// Jun 27, 2006 at 4:16 pm
BJ, there’s a flaw in your reasoning. You say “they’re not really ‘pro-life,’ except where abortion is concerned.” So you’re rejecting that label because it can’t be applied to all situations. However, can “pro-choice” stand up to this test? Are you “pro-choice” in all situations? Wouldn’t that make you an anarchist? I believe both labels must be constrained to the abortion debate or they lose their meaning.
For the same reason, “anti-choice” is a misnomer, since I don’t know anyone who believes everyone should have no choice in any given situation. Perhaps a better term, if you insist on not using “pro-life,” would be “anti-abortion.”
2
BJ Stone
// Jun 27, 2006 at 6:03 pm
I understand the “anti-abortion” tag, C.J. but then the opposite of that is “pro-abortion”.
Not all people who are pro-choice are pro-abortion. They just believe it’s not their business to tell a complete stranger what to do with her body.
Maybe we could agree that pro-choice could be called “pro-none of my business”, and anti-choice folks could be called “pro-everybody’s business is my business”.
Oh, and I see your point on pro-choice, I really do. However, I do indeed know people who think there should be no choice on abortion NO MATTER the situation. Sadly, those folks are out there, and in greater numbers than reasonable people would like to admit.
3
BJ Aberle
// Jun 27, 2006 at 7:39 pm
“Not all people who are pro-choice are pro-abortion. They just believe it’s not their business to tell a complete stranger what to do with her body.”
Would you feel justified in telling a complete stranger not to kill a life? I would. I wouldn’t find it at all intrusive, but more of a moral obligation. And secondly what about the father? Shouldn’t he have a say in what happens to the baby?
I am not sure how I feel yet as far as cases for rape and incest go. Still sticking with the issue of choice, in rape or incest the choice has been removed only to force upon the mother…oops I mean fetus carrier.. the ultimate choice. To me, when a person engages in sexual activity they make the choice to be responsible for their actions. I don’t like this cavalier attitude towrds abortion as being “just another form of birth control.” But then I also feel an innocent child …oops I mean fetus.. should not suffer death due to the misdeeds of its’ father.
It’s so turned around to me. Those who generaly oppose the death penalty logicly should feel the same about abortion. But that is not the case for the most part. It seems guilty criminals are more valued than innocent babys. Strange.
4
BJ Stone
// Jun 27, 2006 at 9:10 pm
For the record, I don’t oppose the death penalty.
5
BJ Stone
// Jun 27, 2006 at 9:14 pm
Oh, and yes, the father and mother should discuss the situation whenever possible. When the father is a rapist, however, don’t you think that’s another story?
And like you, yes, I would feel quite comfortable telling a killer to not kill someone, but I don’t automatically consider every woman who has an abortion to be a killer.
I think it’s far, far more tragic and wrong what that local doctor did to her child than another woman aborting in the first few weeks of pregnancy.
6
C. J. Summers
// Jun 27, 2006 at 9:14 pm
Well, again, this is a bit confusing because sometimes you limit the labels to the abortion debate, and other times you broaden them to mean any social interaction imaginable. Indeed there are those who are “anti-choice” in regards to abortion. But my point was that I know of no one who is anti-choice about everything. You need to decide if you’re going to define labels in relation to the abortion debate alone, or in relation to all human decisions.
As far as telling a complete stranger what to do with her body, we do this all the time — you can’t take illegal drugs, can’t drive without a seat belt, can’t walk around naked in public, can’t smoke in no-smoking sections, etc., etc., etc. Life is full of limitations and expectations of responsible actions.
Face it, both sides of the abortion debate try to label themselves with loaded rhetoric because the label itself implies their position. People against abortion want to be called “pro-life” because they belive we’re not dealing with one person and her body, but with two people and two bodies — there’s a separate human life inside that mother, and pro-lifers don’t believe it should be snuffed out as a form of birth control.
People against outlawing abortion call themselves “pro-choice” because they believe, as you stated, that the mother has a right to choose what she does with her body, implying that the baby/fetus is a part of her body that is owned by her and can be birthed or eliminated at the woman’s will, and it’s nobody else’s business.
Labeling for each side is simply a way of summing up their arguments into a rhetorical shorthand.
So I think the most egalitarian thing is to just let each side use its own label. I’ll call you pro-choice if you call me pro-life. Otherwise, the whole thing just devolves into name-calling.
7
Vonster
// Jul 7, 2006 at 6:03 pm
CJ: There’s ALWAYS a flaw in his reasoning. ‘-)
Nobody is PRO abortion except for a few NAGS in Planned Parenthood. I am both pro-choice and pro-life. How? It’s simple. I believe abaortions should be safe, legal and rare.
8
C. J. Summers
// Jul 8, 2006 at 9:43 pm
Vonster, the “safe, legal, and rare” argument is self-contradictory.
To believe any abortion can be “safe,” you must ignore the obvious violence done to the baby — i.e., you must believe the fetus is not a person. Once you accept the notion that a fetus is a person — a human life worthy of dignity, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” you can not logically consider any abortion “safe” because abortion kills the baby.
You can’t believe that abortion should be legal unless you believe it is not morally wrong. If you believe the fetus is a person, then abortion is a violent, lethal act against a defenseless person. How can one condone the legality of such an act?
Thus, to believe an abortion should be safe and legal, one has to deny personhood to the fetus. But if you don’t believe that the fetus is a person or that terminating a pregnancy is morally wrong, then on what basis do you believe it should be “rare”? What’s wrong with there being a billion abortions if it does no harm — i.e., if it is, indeed, safe and legal? What makes it any different than any other form of birth control, other than cost?
Hence, I dispute your contention that wanting abortion to be “safe, legal, and rare” is both a pro-choice and pro-life position. It is not. It is purely pro-choice. Essentially, it means that you want women, for no physical or ethical reasons, to choose not to have abortions. I find that argument untenable.
9
Vonster
// Jul 10, 2006 at 5:58 pm
No, unlike many of my conservative brethren, I just accept the reality that sometimes having an abortion is the lesser of the available evils or simply a necessary evil. At the same time, I don’t want people using abortion as a form of birth control.
By safe I mean safe for the woman.
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