“Pro-Choice” and “Pro-Life”
I was listening to a podcast today and the topic was abortion rights and laws in the United States. During the discussion, the panelist from Planned Parenthood repeatedly referred to the opposition as “anti-choice.” This caught my attention immediately, because it addresses something which has annoyed me for quite a while. The two sides of the debate are pro-abortion rights and anti-abortion rights, not pro-choice and pro-life. By playing games with words, both sides confuse the issue and make it more difficult for the public to understand. Sadly, I believe that this is not unintentional.
Let’s start with the “pro-lifers.” A lot of these people support the death penalty, so we’re obviously dealing with a meaningless term. Secondly, have you ever heard of anyone who was anti-life? The simple fact is that these people are trying to gain support from the ignorant by calling themselves something that no reasonable person could be against on face value. So-called “pro-life” people have murdered doctors who have performed abortions, which should put the entire movement to shame — especially since those murderers are not widely condemned within the anti-abortion-rights movement. Lastly, most of these people, or at least the ones who make themselves heard, are basing their arguments upon religious beliefs. That is wrong and unconstitutional. I have yet to hear any objective, non-emotional reasons why abortion should be outlawed.
Now on to the “pro-choice” crowd. Unlike the beautiful irony of the “pro-lifers” for the death penalty, I don’t have anything really funny to say about the “pro-choice” name. I have never heard of a pro-abortion-rights advocate who was against the right of others to make other choices, nor have I heard any speak out against vegetarianism, SUVs, nudists, or freedom of religion. However, they are guilty of the same thing as the anti-abortion-rights crowd. What person in their right mind is anti-choice?
Why can’t we have a public discussion on a topic without all the spin? Until we do, I’m afraid we’ll continue to go nowhere, or progress will take a lot longer and victimize a lot more people in the meantime by withholding the rational options or promoting the irrational ones to the public. This is a tragedy, considering that so many Americans don’t seem to be able to think skeptically about anything other than reality television.
July 11th, 2007 at 2:15 am
Agreed.
July 11th, 2007 at 6:39 am
SafireRose,
Thanks for placing the first comment on the MiloCast blog. I am very interested in seeing what others have to say.
July 11th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Hi Milo,
I never really blogged about abortion before. It’s a strange subject for me because I can actually understand the pro-life side. Then I look at the pro-lifers and think how can I possibly agree with them?!
So here’s the deal, I’m pro-choice, but barely. I think we should set a goal as a society to get to zero abortions performed. My way to accomplish said goal would be to provide birth control and education. Unfortunately, the current political climate seems to want to eliminate abortions by making it illegal. At the same time, they preach “absistinance only” sex education. I think it’s a recipe for disaster as more and more young folks don’t learn safe sex methods and then seek illegal and dangerous abortions. Just my two cents.
July 12th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
Evan,
Welcome to my blog. I enjoyed yours very much, and encourage people to read the few posts you did do, and the great conversations which resulted in your comments section.
I think I agree with everything you said, if I’m interpreting your “goal of zero abortions” comment correctly. I’m all for it if you mean that we do anything we can to prevent the pregnancies which end up being aborted. For example, let’s reduce unwanted pregnancies with education. Let’s reduce high-risk pregnancies via nutrition, education, and medical advice. Let’s reduce pregnancies where the embryo would not survive to term or would have to suffer a poor quality of life due to defects if it did live.
But I don’t think we can ever bring the number down to zero — the issues such as those above and rape will probably still exist during our lifetime.
I think a very important point which needs to be made is that people who don’t identify themselves with the anti-abortion crowd are not advocating irresponsible sexual practices without consequences. They are in favor of human rights.
July 12th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
First let me state that the death penalty is a punishment in response to a persons actions. It is a consequence to a person breaking the law. As a Christian I am torn on the issue, but that is a whole other story.
As far as the “pro-choice’ folks go, many of them are big on the animal-rights thing. So “fur is murder” but kill all the unborn they don’t matter.
And here we are at the crux of the issue. The value of human life.
Human life is slowly becoming more expendable. The want for assisted suicide, euthanasia, abortion, and the quality of life issues. As a Christian i believe we are all made in the image of God. And God is the measure of all things.
If man is the measure then what can stand in the way of inhumanity.
For the record do I condone the actions of the “pro-lifers” who do those terrible things to clinics. y no means can the even use a Biblical argument to justify their actions.
parts of a paper i wrote for a class this summer:
as Schaffer puts it (1978) “churches and other groups opposed to abortion must be prepared to extend practical help to both the unmarried and the married who are faced with the option of abortion”.
In A Christian Manifesto (1981) Schaffer states “They [Christians] have very gradually become disturbed over permissiveness, pornography…and finally abortion. But they have not seen things as a whole”. (17) With many Christians focusing one singular issues’ it has become easy to get sidetracked.
July 12th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
Matt,
Welcome to the forum! Although I consider you a friend, I’m going to have to smash some of your arguments.
1. You dismiss the so-called “pro-choice” crowd because some of them are against killing animals for fur, implying that if they can’t even value human life over animal life, then their opinions don’t count. First of all, you are not attacking their position on abortion with any reasons, so you are saying nothing. Secondly, you are attacking the people who hold those beliefs, not the beliefs themselves, so you are again adding nothing of value; you’re just giving yourself another reason to believe what you already believed.
2. You begin rambling about the value of human life. This has nothing to do with the topic at hand. maybe if we were discussing the death penalty or so-called “honor-killings” performed by Muslims it would be relevant. But abortion rights are a completely different issue.
3. You state that you are a Christian, then go on to say that your god is the measure of all things. Simply stating that you believe something does not make it true, and without evidence to back it up, you can’t use it to justify your other beliefs.
4. Your question “If man is the measure then what can stand in the way of inhumanity?” makes the assumption that man is absolutely immoral, and can not possibly create and thrive in a productive, moral society without your god. Needless to say, this is simply your opinion and is not a proven fact.
Thanks for playing! Better luck next time.
July 13th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
Shawn,
We are in agreement. Reducing the number of abortions through education, birth control, etc. is an admirable goal - not the elimination of abortion as a choice (albeit a difficult choice). The key is preventing the situation from coming up in the first place.
It kills me when the religious community blocked the FDA approval of the morning after pill. The only possible outcome will be more abortions!
The book “Freakonomics” has some very interesting data on abortion - I highly encourage pro-lifers to read it.