Opinion

The desperation of pro-choice labels

Of all the mischaracterizations and stereotypes of the pro-life movement, I think the most desperate is that we are a small movement of grumpy men who hate women (probably because we were too dumb to attract them in the first place) and just want to enforce our judgmental and narrow-minded views on people to control them. This image depicts us as frustrated and joyless people – the mean guys taking things away from others. In a society without any clear moral standards or any solid idea of what is right and wrong, the worst thing is the guy who’s just being “mean.”

It’s for the above reason that we are labeled as “anti-choice” and not “pro-life.” Someone who is “pro-life” is by definition life-affirming, positive, happy, and enthused. Someone who is “anti-choice” is mean, oppressive, and tyrannical. That’s also why they hate saying they’re “pro-abortion”; of course, they’re “pro-choice.”

But this gives the whole game away, because it deliberately steers the conversation away from abortion. It’s as if abortion is universally accepted as negative. That’s why it’s so desperate! This mentality is already rooted in some idea that abortion is not a happy affair, at best some necessary evil, something shameful and uncomfortable. The language of the other side in a way almost presupposes the pro-life position – abortion is not good. It’s their awkward attempt to rationalize and reconcile the fact that they are standing for a procedure that kills.

Those in favor of abortion are put in the uncomfortable position of advocating something inherently negative. Despite frantic attempts on the part of the media to make abortion a political term (one of those issues, like gas prices and the economy), to normalize it into our language, the fact remains that the procedure kills an innocent human being. The issue is simple. One side is fine with killing babies in the womb (however many justifications they want to dream up, the bottom line is that they’re still okay with it). The other side isn’t. However much you want to rationalize around that, standing for a woman’s right to have her child killed isn’t exactly a catalyst for joyful enthusiasm. What little enthusiasm there is pretty much surfaces as an immature temper tantrum.

Hence, you have pro-choice rallies that consist of angry shouting of slogans that have little or nothing to do with the issue (to redirect the whole matter to a “woman’s rights” issue), to somehow twist this to be about liberty (even though it be a license to kill…). The pro-lifer may joyfully, righteously, and fiercely proclaim (like an act of rebellion) that she is against abortion because it is murder, and that she affirms the dignity and value of every human life. To which the pro-choicer may only awkwardly stutter and bluster in response, “I believe in a woman’s right to choose.”

Thus, it is our side that is grounded in a rock-solid, firm, and immovable reality: abortion is wrong, because life is good and beautiful and precious. We’re fighting for something very precious and noble here, and this should fill all of us with a real sense of pride and joy. We believe in the joy of life, that life is worth living no matter what! That life is objectively great and good, regardless of circumstances. Our side has something to fight for, and what we’re fighting for isn’t going to go away. People on the other side hardly even knows what they’re fighting for (their goals keep “progressing”).

We’re not even just fighting for an abstract ideal (“life,” define it how you please). We’re fighting for babies! We’re fighting for concrete reality of a tiny baby’s right to life.

And it is because of this that we must be labeled, we must be misrepresented and stereotyped. Insofar as we are against abortion because we think a baby has a right to life, we aren’t the “mean side.” As long as society sees us as a positive movement affirming something very good and fighting against something evil, the abortion advocates won’t get anywhere. Thus, their labels are born out of pure desperation.

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notimportant

Just remember…”Sticks and stones may break our bones, but names will never hurt us!”….and there’s gonna be a lawsuit, by God, if the sticks and stones come into play!
http://twitter.com/Astraspider Astraspider

Do the writers here have some quota on designating the pro-choice side “desperate”, or predicting Planned Parenthood’s “imminent demise”, or declaring their own moral superiority?

And is it a simple function of buttressing morale? Or delusion?
peach

“The issue is simple.” That you see this as a simple issue is what makes it so hard for pro-choicers to debate you. It is anything but simple. And most pro-choicers recognize that. That’s also why some pro-choicers will say abortion is a necessary evil but others will say it’s a flat-out good thing (not all presuppose that abortion is bad). The world isn’t black and white.

“People on the other side hardly even knows [sic] what they’re fighting for (their goals keep “progressing”).” Could you provide some examples of this?
- Matthias
  
  Either abortion is wrong or it isn’t. That’s a simple issue, and it is black and white. If abortion is murder, then it’s wrong. If it’s not murder, then what’s the big deal? Why even call it a necessary evil? The people who complicate the issue are just rationalizing their own bs – “yes, it’s killing a baby…. but actually, it’s sort of kind of, if you look at it this way, it’s not murder, it’s about the woman’s choice and how she feels about it… after all who are we to impose our moral ideas on people?” Seriously? I mean come on. If it’s evil, it’s evil. Case closed. To laughably come up with the “safe, legal, rare” rhetoric is just absurd.
  
  Sure. What are you fighting for? Some abstract concept of liberty? What is liberty? Is it just the absence of constraints, the ability to do whatever you want? Try reading the Declaration of Independence under that rubric, it’s pretty laughable. Is it woman’s rights? What gives a woman a right? What is the objective value in a woman that makes her worth having rights, but not her baby? What’s your concept of morality? Your side hasn’t figured out what your moral values are… you’re still working on that, aren’t you? One year you’ll say one thing, the next something else. Do you have something solid you’re fighting for? No, you have abstract concepts that are always changing and you haven’t worked out yet.
  
  Contrary to you, we have something pretty solid we’re fighting for: a baby’s life.
  - peach
    
    I’m not sure you answered my question. I think the pro-choice movement has been pretty consistent in fighting for women’s rights. Maybe some of the methods/vernacular have changed, but the goal is pretty clear. I’m sorry if the pro-choice movement isn’t made up of a homogenous mass of people who don’t/can’t think for themselves. As for “safe, legal, rare” that makes sense to me because I think of abortion as a medical procedure. Just like cancer treatment I want it to be safe, legal (obviously) and rare, but also easily and readily accessible.
    
    Have you heard of the Heinz dilemma? Moral reasoning requires critical thinking and a high level of mental functioning. It’s not black or white, even if it is murder (self-defense? the death penalty?). Something can be “wrong” but still legal. You even have people on the pro-life side who disagree over things like whether a woman who has been raped can get an abortion.
    - Matthias
      
      And what are women’s rights? A woman has an inherent right to kill her baby? Really? That’s awfully “pro-woman” of them. See, that’s my whole point: you divert the issue away from the issue… abortion. We can all agree that women have rights.
      
      Is this medical procedure right or wrong? A surgery to remove a cancer from my body is right. It’s good, because cancer is not good. A baby, a pregnancy, is not a disease. It’s not an STD. You just give yourself away when you say “We want it to be accessible, because obviously it’s beneficial to women; we also want it to not happen very much”. You can’t have it both ways – promote it and make it more accessible and then try to make it rare. Which is it?
      
      Not really. Here’s an example. Suppose a man comes up to you and attacks you without any reason. How long does it take you to come up with a moral judgment that what he is doing is wrong, and resist him? How much critical thinking did you need to figure that out? How high of a level of mental functioning do you need? Do you stop and consider “well, morality isn’t black and white – maybe it’s not wrong.”
      
      Suppose you are walking next to man seated on a bench. He sticks out his legs and you fall flat on your face. You will immediately begin making moral judgments about him – did he do it on purpose, was it an accident?
      
      Moral reasoning is second nature, my friend.
      - peach
        
        I’m not your friend, dude.
        
        Making abortion about women’s rights is not diverting the issue because, if you weren’t aware, pregnancy occurs INSIDE OF A WOMAN. I know that as a man, that doesn’t affect you at all. How nice.
        
        And yes, you can have it both ways. As I said with the cancer example, I want treatment to be readily available, but I want as small amount of people needing that treatment as possible because I don’t wish cancer on anyone. Just as I don’t wish an unwanted pregnancy on anyone. Planned Parenthood, for example, does a lot to teach safe-sex and provide contraception.
      - Shelley
        
        They don’t seem to be able to grasp that simple fact. When we point that out, they say it’s “dishonest” because they just can’t accept it. I’ve noticed a lot of that going around lately in many other policy debates…
      - http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger
        
        Shelly, if you’ve been bothering to actually read the comments you’re whining about, then you know full well what has and has not been called dishonest.
        
        What makes you think it’s okay to keep intentionally misrepresenting those comments? Do you believe ethics don’t apply to you? That the ends justify the means? That it’s going to make anyone here *more* likely to take you seriously?
      - Matthias
        
        And so, because it happens inside a woman, this is about liberty and freedom and “pro-choice” and has nothing to do with the fact that a human being is being murdered? See what I mean? You have to justify a deliberate killing of an innocent human being, a baby in fact. Good luck. My point is that you turn the whole thing away from the main issue: is it ok to kill the baby, or not?
        
        But then it’s a good procedure. In which case, try to make it as readily available as possible. There’s nothing wrong with abortion, only the need for an abortion according to you.
        
        Planned Parenthood, does a lot to promote illicit sex. Which is how unwanted pregnancies occur. If sex was occurring in a marriage, in which both couples are open to children, abortion wouldn’t be much of a problem.
      - peach
        
        Because married women never get abortions, right?
- mythought
  
  We don’t claim that the circumstances surrounding the issue are simple. Agreed – those are anything but. However, the basic, fundamental issue is this: does every human being, regardless of size, level of development, environment, and dependency, deserve the equal right to life? And the simple answer is yes.
Didaskalos

The cause of most abortion supporters’ nightmares has to be the ubiquitous availability (via the internet and in pregnancy resource centers) of ultrasounds. Even pro-choice icons like Kate Michelman and Frances Kissling (in their 2008 letter) can’t ignore the obvious:

“. . . In the 1970s, the arguments were simple and polarized: Abortion was either murder or a woman’s right to control her body. The fetus, however, stayed largely invisible. The pro-choice movement stayed on the message offensive, tactically shifting in 1989 from women’s bodies to the “who decides” question posed by NARAL Pro-Choice America. But this was rapidly parried by the anti-choice demand that we look at what was being decided, not just who was deciding.”Science facilitated the swing of the pendulum. Three-dimensional ultrasound images of babies in utero began to grace the family fridge. Fetuses underwent surgery. More premature babies survived and were healthier. They commanded our attention, and the question of what we owe them, if anything, could not be dismissed.”These trends gave antiabortionists an advantage, and they made the best of it. Now, we rarely hear them talk about murdering babies. Instead, they present a sophisticated philosophical and political challenge. Caring societies, they say, seek to expand inclusion into “the human community.” Those once excluded, such as women and minorities, are now equal. Why not welcome the fetus (who, after all, is us) into our community?”Advocates of choice have had a hard time dealing with the increased visibility of the fetus. The preferred strategy is still to ignore it and try to shift the conversation back to women. At times, this makes us appear insensitive, a bit too pragmatic in a world where the desire to live more communitarian and “life-affirming” lives is palpable. To some people, pro-choice values seem to have been unaffected by the desire to save the whales and the trees, to respect animal life and to end violence at all levels. Pope John Paul II got that, and coined the term “culture of life.” President Bush adopted it, and the slogan, as much as it pains us to admit it, moved some hearts and minds. Supporting abortion is tough to fit into this package.”
Sharon Rose

–
Of all the mischaracterizations and stereotypes of the pro-life movement, I think the most desperate is that we are a small movement of grumpy men who hate women (probably because we were too dumb to attract them in the first place) and just want to enforce our judgmental and narrow-minded views on people to control them. –

And yet the most active male voice in the comboxes is….Calvin Freiburger! Can’t imagine how anyone gets the idea you’re a bunch of misogynistic bullies, nope, can’t imagine where that idea comes from at all…

Clean up your own house, because you’re turning off more prolifers than you are changing the hearts and minds of prochoicers.
Shelley

Right–because using terms like “pro-aborts”, “abortion mills”, and “abortionists” doesn’t make you people sound desperate at all…

I think the reason the word “abortion” isn’t used often is because people are uncomfortable talking about anything having to do with a woman’s reproductive organs. Have you seen the debates in Michigan? Female state legislators are being prevented from speaking about a woman’s issue because they use the word “vagina”. And you think the pro-choice people have a problem calling something what it is…
- http://prolife-girl.blogspot.ca/ Dolce
  
  I think you just proved this article’s point when you implied that “pro-aborts”, “abortion mills”, and “abortionists” all have negative connotations despite the fact that they are ALL words semantically associated with abortion … the very thing that pro-choicers advocate for.
  - Didaskalos
    
    Pro-choicers are definitely worried about the semantics of the “abortion” word. Too many women are seeing the little people kicking and squirming in their wombs. That visual proof of the humanity of the unborn has abortion leaders in a state of consternation.
    
    Casey Martinson, a Planned Parenthood Director of Public Affairs, wrote on Jan. 21 of this year:”. . . I’m sorry to say that the sky is falling on Roe v Wade. It’s been falling incrementally for the past four decades, and it fell further, faster, in 2011 than in any year before. According to the Guttmacher Institute, state legislatures passed 94 new laws restricting abortion in 2012. Not only is that a new record, but it shatters the previous record of 34 new laws passed in 2005 by a lot.”Furthermore some of the restrictions that have been passed in recent years are actually in violation of the protections afforded by Roe v Wade, designed that way intentionally to seed a Supreme Court challenge to the 1973 decision. For example, Nebraska, Idaho, Oklahoma, and Kansas have all passed laws banning abortion after 20 weeks. Many more have tried. And if you look at who is sitting on the bench of our current Supreme Court, there are only three solidly pro-choice votes – the National Abortion Federation rates Justice Kennedy as “mixed” and Justice Sotomayor as “unknown.” The idea that Roe v Wade could be overturned is not Chicken Little.”
- Drama queen
  
  A (singular) drama-queen legislator, who thinks the earth orbits around her vayjay, was given a one-day timeout from her hysterical grandstanding. Big deal. Ann Coulter’s bon mot gives the right perspective on the vainglorious narcissist: ”For making inappropriate remarks during a legislative session, Brown was prohibited from making floor speeches for one day. Being an hysterical drama queen who believes the Michigan Legislature was thinking about her and her vagina, Rep. Brown responded to the sanction by claiming she had been “silenced.” A vulgarian gets a one-day penalty, and suddenly she’s Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.”
  - Shelley
    
    She wasn’t causing drama, she was trying to stand up for the rights of her fellow women. I’m not sure what was “inappropriate” about it, aside from using the term “vagina”, which seems to scare the anti-choicers. (By the way, if you’re going to use the TV-friendly alternative, it’s “vajayjay”).
    If I remember correctly, it was Dick Cheney who used the f-word on the floor of the US Senate. And refused to apologize or acknowledge the inappropriateness. I’m just saying.
    
    But Ann Coulter, now there’s a class act! Oh wait, I seem to remember a few (hundred) “inappropriate” and offensive things she’s said. One of the most recent that comes to mind is making fun of blind people: http://politicker.com/2012/05/ann-coulter-responds-to-furor-over-her-blind-man-joke-by-making-more-blind-man-jokes/ Oui, évidemment ses mots sont toujours si bons…
    - Rebecca Downs
      
      She may have been standing up for the rights of her fellow women in her mind, but she did so inappropriately, and also by causing drama. The inappropriateness was not in the word “vagina.” That’s what people misunderstand about the instance and what the feminists love to keep people in the dark about. If it was just because she said “vagina,” the correct terminology for a body part and an actual word, then yes, that would be silly (though as long as people don’t go in the direction of getting more offensive, I don’t really care if they call it vajayjay). It was the sentence in which she used it in. And Ann Coulter’s article in the Daily Caller I think made a very good point about how this issue has been misunderstood. Even if you may not think of her highly, I still encourage you to read it…
      
      http://dailycaller.com/2012/06/20/the-vagina-shouters-are-missing-the-point/
      - Shelley
        
        Okay, I read it, and I’m not remotely surprised by what she said because it’s the typical anti-abortion reasoning. What Rep Brown said was perfectly valid–legislators are trying to effectively outlaw abortion in MI by making increased demands on abortion clinics so that they’ll be prohibitively expensive. In trying to outlaw abortions, they certainly are overly “interested” in every Michigan woman’s vagina. She wasn’t being narcissistic, she was pointing out how it’s wrong for government to regulate what women can do with their reproductive organs.
        
        I know you obviously don’t agree on that last part–no need to rehash that again, like you said–but I’m just explaining her reasoning.
      - http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger
        
        “In trying to outlaw abortions, they certainly are overly ‘interested’ in every Michigan woman’s vagina [...] government to regulate what women can do with their reproductive organs.”
        
        So the fetus is being defined as one of his or her mother’s reproductive organs now? That would be the only way your statements are even remotely true.
      - Shelley
        
        Again, really? With the same arguments?
        
        Last I checked, the uterus was part of a woman’s reproductive organs, and (in most cases) it eventually has to be pushed out though–guess what? The vagina! Often causing excruciating pain and lasting damage in the process, I might add. Some women think that’s worth it to have a child, but if they don’t, they shouldn’t have to go through that. Forcing a woman to carry a pregnancy to term is telling a woman what to do with her reproductive organs.
        
        I assume you’re going to continue your strategy of denying these simple facts for some reason, so go right ahead, but let me say that I honestly don’t understand why you can’t just acknowledge that you are telling a woman what to do with her body, but you think that it’s worth it to do so in order to save a fetus. Arguing over facts is pointless. Obviously what we really disagree on is whether a fetus (or zygote, blastocyst, or embryo) should be granted rights and whether or when its alleged rights supersede those of the woman.
      - http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger
        
        Yes again. And again, and again, until you drop the sham argument.
        
        “Last I checked, the uterus was part of a woman’s reproductive organs,
        and (in most cases) it eventually has to be pushed out though–guess
        what? The vagina!”
        
        And is the uterus what we’re interested in, or the person you want to kill inside of it?
        
        Describing the position as “telling a woman what to do with her reproductive organs” is a major oversimplification that has no possible justification other than your intention to deceive people. Period, end of story, full stop.
      - Shelley
        
        Honestly, I’d be perfectly willing to have a productive debate about the real issue: the alleged rights of a fetus versus the rights of a pregnant woman. I even think that’s a debate worth having, actually.
        
        However, there’s no point at all in debating someone who refuses to acknowledge empirical, scientific, and blatantly obvious facts. Have fun in your own little world there, Calvin.
      - http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger
        
        She say, unable to stop herself from knowingly and transparently misrepresenting what I’ve said.
        
        I denied no scientific facts; I simply objected to your attempt to use rhetoric that pretends the woman’s body is the point of contention, rather than the other body you want the freedom to destroy.
        
        And you know it.
        
        Better luck next time.
      - Anonymous
        
        It really doesn’t help your argument when you don’t appear to be able to grasp basic subject-verb agreement…
- Didaskalos
  
  It’s the abortion industry movers and shakers who are sedulously avoiding using the big “A” word these days. Pro-lifers still use it all the time because an abortion extinguishes the life of voiceless, choiceless human being. The word “abortion” is being excised from abortion industry leaders’ lexicons because they know what negative connotations it has. When their only permissible “choice” is abortion, abortion apostles will trot out every euphemism they can concoct to avoid calling abortion abortion: ”terminating the pregnancy,” “interrupt a pregnancy,” ”empty the uterine contents,” “exercise one’s reproductive freedom,” “taking care of the problem,” “exercising bodily autonomy.”
  - Shelley
    
    No, my objections aren’t to the use of the word “abortion”. There’s a nice explanation of why “pro-abortion” is an inaccurate term above: we don’t think it’s the correct choice all the time, we just think it should be an option. Someone who’s “pro-abortion” would think that it’s always the best option, and that’s simply not the case. Shortening it to “pro-abort” only makes you seem dumber, because “abort” is a verb and doesn’t fit grammatically with the “pro-” prefix.
    
    “Abortion mill”: I don’t really know where this one came from except that it seems similar to the term “puppy mill”, which has nothing to do with anything and is actually insulting to the canine victims of such a place. I suppose you’re trying to imply that women’s health clinics do nothing but provide abortions, but that’s just not the case. And each woman who is there for an abortion is given the time, respect, and information to ensure that she’s making the correct decision if that’s what she wants. Well, that’s on the inside–outside the clinic women are often shouted at and treated with scorn, no matter why they’re there.
    
    “Abortionist” simply implies that the doctors who perform abortions aren’t actual doctors. It’s like you can’t accept that abortions are actually performed (or monitored, in the case of a medical abortion) by qualified, educated medical professionals (when they’re legal).
    - Didaskalos
      
      Abortion is, has been, and will always be Planned Parenthod’s number-one marketing priority and cash cow. . . only ranking behind the 46 percent of its revenues wrested from unwilling taxpayers. Abby Johnson, former Planned Parenthood Director and Planned Parenthood of Southeast Texas 2008 Employee of the Year, writes: ”. . . Each year, each Planned Parenthood clinic has an individual budget meeting. With a feeling of dread I drove to Houston to meet with Cheryl and Barbara to receive the budget for my clinic. The assigned budget always includes a line for client goals under abortion services and a line for client goals under family planning.”When I looked at the numbers, I did a double take. I noticed that the client goals related to family planning hadn’t changed much, but the client goals under abortion services had increased significantly. My mind started racing. ’Something’s got to be wrong here,’ I thought. ’Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Our goal at Planned Parenthood is to decrease the number of abortions by decreasing the number of unwanted pregnancies. That means family planning services — birth control. That is our stated goal. So why am I being asked, according to this budget, to increase my abortion revenue and thus my abortion client count.’”And so I asked the question out loud.”I came away from that meeting with the clear and distinct understanding that I was to get my priorities straight, that abortion was where my priorities needed to be because that was where the revenue was. This meant that my job as the clinic director was to find a way to increase the number of abortions at my clinic.”. . .I was starting to put the pieces together. I couldn’t escape the thought that this organization that had given me my career would soon be in the late-term abortion business. . . . I was finding it increasingly hard to justify what I now saw as Planned Parenthood’s money-first attitude toward abortion, especially late-term abortions. . . . in light of the budget discussions, I couldn’t help but do the math. The later the abortion, the higher the cost. A late-term abortion, I knew, could cost between $3,000 and $4,000. There was big money to be made.”
    - Didaskalos
      
      Well, then, we could call a truce, couldn’t we? Pro-choicers will henceforth drop the “anti-abortion” and Orwellian “anti-choice” monikers they’ve bestowed on pro-lifers for decades and call pro-lifers by the name they’ve chosen for themselves. Even the media (whose AP stylebook doesn’t permit the hyphenated adjective “pro-life”) can get on board.
      
      Pro-lifers will henceforth drop the “pro-abortion” term and call pro-choicers by the name they prefer.
      
      Now if I monitor every press release and email to its supporters from Planned Parenthood, how many hundred years will I have to live before I see a single “pro-life” reference.
      
      One of PP’s latest press releases: “Planned Parenthood knows firsthand the challenges that women face in accessing affordable health care, and politics should never get in the way of women’s access to health services,” says Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “The DC abortion ban and the Nunnelee amendment are simply political moves by opponents of women’s health who have repeatedly demonstrated they will use any opportunity to push their own agenda. We will continue to fight politicians’ interference with a women’s access to comprehensive coverage of reproductive health services.”
      
      “Opponents of women’s health.” Uh, those would be the afore-mentioned pro-lifers, I think. But give Richards credit for sticking to the Abortionspeak dictionary and never mentioning by name the largest source of Planned Parenthood’s “health services” income: abortion. The latest Planned Parenthood annual report reveals that 31 percent of its income comes from abortion, i.e. “non-government health services revenue.”
      - Shelley
        
        Uh-huh, theoretically we could call a truce, but clearly that isn’t going to happen from either side. I was only pointing out the other side of the “labeling” issue.
        
        I could get into that whole Planned Parenthood discussion, but it’s kind of off-topic and your mind is obviously made up on that topic. I’ll just end with the fact that my local PP doesn’t provide abortions–not all of them do–and it’s helped several of my friends get decent women’s health services at a discounted price since they were students.
      - Didaskalos
        
        Yes, Shelley, my mind is made up by the admissions of Planned Parenthood insiders that abortion is PP’s most valuable commodity, one that’s marketed to the exclusion of other alternatives by “counselors” in those PP clinics that do abortions. Add to that the investigations that LiveAction has done, revealing PP’s willingness to abet sex-selection abortions, PP’s lying to women about fetal development, PP’s trying to talk women out of seeing an ultrasound because it would “make the decision harder,” etc., etc.
        
        Johnson noted in an interview, ”I know that a lot of [abortion] clinic workers feel trapped in the abortion industry. . . One thing that drives them [the abortion industry] always is profit. . . The bottom line is that they’re hurting; their numbers are down. People aren’t going to them for family planning services like they used to; they can’t fill up their schedules like they used to. . . For the entire fiscal year ’09 our family planning clincs were in the hole; . . .the only reason Planned Parenthood made any money in fiscal year ’09 was because of their abortion services. . . . they charge anywhere from $500 to $900 for abortions up to 16 weeks . . . that [abortion profit] really is what saves them at the end of the year. . .
        
        “As many as 8 of 10 women who view ultrasounds [ http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1655642864281678518# ] and view the heartbeat of their child change their minds about abortion. . . Abortion facilities don’t want women to make that maternal connection because then they lose money if the woman chooses life. . . Almost all the women walking in to have an abortion think it’s a baby; when they ask you questions, they say, ‘What about my baby?’ They call it a baby, but the clinic workers are not going to respond in that same kind of language.”
    - Cheri
      
      Choice and Life are terms that cover a broad spectrum of issues, which is why we are confronted with petty arguments that drag in issues other than abortion. Not all pro-choicers believe in protecting all choices (rape is a choice, incest is a choice, running over a pedestrian is a choice, etc) and not all pro-lifers believe all human lives should be protected (convicted murderers have revoked their rights, including the right to life).
      
      Do you really believe that pro gay marriage means everyone has to be in a gay marriage? Of course not, it means one believes that gay marriage is a right if one CHOOSES to marry. The same goes for the pro gun beliefs: everyone has the right to own, carry, and use a gun. It does not mean that everyone must have a gun, it means the right to CHOOSE to have one. Therefore, to believe abortion is a right worth protecting is properly identified as pro-abortion and those who believe abortion violates the right to life are identified as anti-abortion. Its about sticking to the issue of contention: abortion.
Rebecca Downs

Great article! It explains really well why the whole pro-choice label is so baffling, false even. If you’re pro-choice, you are pro-abortion. It’s not demonizing the other side, it’s true. And yet people who are not pro-life meanwhile try to demonize us by calling us anti-choice. It’s all just very immature, really. But again, really great article!
- Sharon Rose
  
  Says the woman who proudly and loudly brags how she would imprison a rape victim and force her to carry her rapist’s baby to term…
  
  You’re definitely anti-choice — anti-choice when it comes to allowing rape victims to reclaim their own bodies after a brutally violent attack.
  - Rebecca Downs
    
    I may not support abortion even in rape, but I never said any such thing that you claim. You are not only putting words in my mouth, but making serious allegations against me. You are being quite antagonistic with your spouting falsehoods, all because you simply disagree with me!
    
    And to Shelley, who posted below, if you don’t like articles that re-hash the same idea, I do not know why you read or comment. You of course are welcome to, but it just baffles for me to go round in circles. The posts and comments that you guys have made in response to me makes me wonder if you’ve even really read my comments and thought about them. You re-hash your ideas. I doubt either of us will really change our ideas and views on the topic, but at least I seek to address your points with relevant ones right back… you call me a rapist though, which I would not call my worst enemy if it wasn’t true. You’re the ones making light of rape by saying I’ve taken part in a terrible crime I have never done. I am all for a rape victim reclaiming her body, by going to counseling and therapy for healing, not a procedure that will traumatize her further and kill another innocent victim of such a terrible crime…
    
    I have merely commented, written and responded with my opinion. Again, I doubt that you are really caring to respond to my posts, but rather you just express your deep seeded opinion against me. It’s fine if you don’t like me or what I stand for, but that doesn’t matter to me because in my heart I know that I am right. To call someone a rapist though, and to put such falsehoods into their mouth having to do with rape, is a very, very serious allegation…
    - Sharon Rose
      
      Rebecca, imprisoning a woman and forcing her to give birth to her rapist’s baby is exactly what “not supporting abortion even in rape” IS.
      
      It doesn’t matter what YOU think a rape victim you do not know should do — the only thing that matters is what SHE thinks. When you say you would fight to end abortion even for rape victims, you are saying you would further the act she’s already been violated by. You are saying you would continue the force already perpetrated upon her. That’s who you are — it’s what you are — those are YOUR words.
      That’s what you don’t get — it’s all words to you — cheap, easy words. You don’t give a damn about anything or anyone but your agenda, which you “fight” from the comfort of your keyboard.
      - http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger
        
        So now imprisonment has entered the picture, too?
        
        Seriously. Your meds really, really need to be adjusted.
    - Sharon Rose
      
      And it’s “deep-seated”, not “deep seeded”.
    - Shelley
      
      Um, I’ve never called you a rapist, although I can see where Sharon is coming from when she says that, like a rapist, you want to control a woman’s body.
      
      You’re right though, there’s no point in continuing to argue with people who refuse to acknowledge simple facts. I just like to keep tabs on what the anti-choice side is saying, and sometimes the claims are so egregious that it’s difficult to refrain from commenting on them.
      
      The key point you (and many others) fail to grasp, though, is that I’m not really trying to change your mind. You can think whatever you’d like. You believe abortion is wrong, and I would never try to make you have one. Yet if another woman thinks it’s the right decision for her, you would deny her the right to make that choice.
      - Rebecca Downs
        
        It is never okay to call somebody a rapist though when they have never raped anyone. To do so is not only immature and false, but a serious allegation. I do not go around calling you guys murderers for the choice that you support which involves the direct killing of an unborn child.
        
        To call us anti-choice is not only demonizing, it is also not all correct. By being pro-life, I am standing up for the rights of the unborn, so that they have the chance to be born and make choices as well.
        
        You’re the one who refuses to acknowledge simple facts, having to do with the science that life begins at conception. What simple facts am I not acknowledging? I may disagree with you, but I am not factually incorrect here… And you call our side egregious, yet a supporter of abortion is calling me a rapist with no actual claims. If someone alleged that I had forced them to have sex with me, then you can call me a rapist. But you do not, so you can’t. Where we’re going around in circles is that I choose to stand up for the rights of the unborn and help the woman at the same time, protecting her from a coerced abortion or an event which will only traumatize her further. You forget that there is an innocent life put to death because of abortion. Rape is wrong, but two wrongs (rape and the abortion) do not make a right.
        
        I would deny a woman the right to make the choice of abortion because nobody should have the choice to choose murder. Now you are entitled to your beliefs, however wrongly they may be based in your mind. But why is it so wrong that I try and defend myself against being called a rapist, something I take as a very serious allegation, as I should??
      - http://www.facebook.com/jeep.obsessed Brooke Mehr
        
        “Yet if another woman thinks it’s the right decision for her, you would deny her the right to make that choice.”
        
        Yes. Most of us would deny her the “choice” to kill her unborn offspring. Just as we would deny her the choice to kill her born children, her spouse, her boss, her brother, etc. We believe that it is the taking of a life and that that should never be a valid, legal “choice.”
  - mythought
    
    Whoooaaaa…Sharon, you’re way out of line to make these kind of comments. And you’ve been making a lot of them. Don’t equate people who speak out for the lives of innocent babies – who did not commit their fathers’ crimes – rapists. Abortion does not allow rape victims to reclaim their own bodies. Do a little research and you’ll find that many think that abortion was just like a second rape.
- Anonymous
  
  Really, this again? It really is a matter of choice in the context of the debate about legalized abortion. Some people believe that women should have the option, some don’t. Calling someone “pro-abortion” implies that they think abortion is always the right choice and should be mandatory. We’re the only ones who don’t believe in mandatory anything, but in choices.
  - http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger
    
    1.) No, “pro-choice” is a dishonest, empty euphemism. EVERYONE is “pro” some choices and “anti” other choices. This is best illustrated by the fact that on all sorts of issues other than abortion, liberals tend to be far more “anti-choice” than conservatives.
    
    2.) “Pro-abortion” is more honest because it refers to the specific choice you’re in favor of letting people make. To suggest calling you “pro-abortion” implies that you think abortion should be mandatory is a remarkable leap of logic I’d love to see you try to justify.
    - Anonymous
      
      In case you didn’t notice, I said “in the context of the debate about legalized abortion”.
      
      The prefix “pro-” is defined as “in favor of something”. We’re not in favor of abortion over any other option, but in favor of letting women make their own choices.
      - http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger
        
        Um, yeah, that’s my point – that “choice” is something the Left only values in this context.
        
        And yes, you are pro-abortion. You are in favor if it being a legal option. You consider it a morally acceptable, legally tolerable choice.
        
        Why not just say so? If abortion isn’t something unseemly, then why do you guys get so defensive about being called “pro-abortion”?
      - Anonymous
        
        Huh. I was under the impression that that’s the context in which we’re discussing this whole thing. I could go into many other areas in which liberals are generally far more “pro-life”, but since that’s off-topic, I won’t.
        
        But did you actually read what I said? No one believes that abortion is always the correct choice when a woman gets pregnant (okay, very few people. I’m sure there are some nut cases out there). That is what “pro-abortion” implies. Like you yourself said, we’re in favor of it being a legal option. So if you must say something like that, I guess it’s accurate to say we’re “pro-legalization-of-abortion”. It’s just a bit cumbersome, kind of like how “pro-zygote-embryo-or-fetus” is accurate but cumbersome.
        
        Come to think of it, I’m not sure why you don’t call yourselves “pro-fetus”. After all, no one except a strict fruitarian is against all killing at all times, as the term “pro-life” would imply.
      - http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger
        
        Exactly. That’s the procedure you think is good enough to be legal. You consider it something that’s not shameful or dangerous.
        
        “Pro-life,” meanwhile, denotes a concrete natural right that we’re in favor of extending equally to all human beings and you aren’t.
      - Anonymous
        
        Okay, so you’re agreeing to say “pro-legalization-of-abortion” instead of “pro-abortion”?
        
        See, no it doesn’t. “Life” does not mean only human life before it’s born, which is what you apparently think it means. That’s why I mentioned fruitarians, people who won’t even kill plants. They’re “pro-life”. Now this has been pointed out multiple times before, and while I’m not saying it’s the same thing, someone who truly is in favor of “extending equally” the right to life to all humans would be strictly against capital punishment and war (and a host of other things). At best, some of those who are anti-abortion can accurately call themselves “pro-human-life”. Without that qualifier, it doesn’t make any sense.
        
        What it all boils down to is that almost everyone knows what you mean when you say either “pro-choice” or “pro-life”. These are the broadly acknowledged terms, no matter how inaccurate they can be if you look at the literal definitions.
      - http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger
        
        No, “pro-life” doesn’t imply anything about war or capital punishment, any more than “pro-freedom” would imply that somebody’s against jailing criminals. And to suggest that it suggests anything about non-human life is just silly.
        
        You guys are certainly free to keep on using “pro-choice.” But I’ll keep on using “pro-abortion.” I wanna stress what “choice” we’re talking about every chance I get.
        
        Then again, I would be willing to swap out “pro-abortion” for “pro-choice-to-murder”…..
      - Anonymous
        
        Okay, then I guess you’re free to keep using an extremely narrow definition of “life”. I don’t know why you can’t just accept that that’s what it is, though. There’s not only human life, but other animal life, plant life, fungal life, and microscopic life. That’s all I’m saying, that taking these labels outside the strict context of debating legalized abortion is silly, and that if you do it for one side, you should expect to do it for the other.
      - Rebecca Downs
        
        While Calvin certainly does make plenty of good points on his own that I agree with, I’d like to add in my own two cents as well. Pro-abortion is an accurate term because there are organizations and people who are certainly in favor of abortion, especially since they benefit off of it by making money. They are pro-abortion but just hide behind the label of being pro-choice. I will say that I think your label of pro-legalization of abortion is also accurate too though. At the same time though, I do feel that abortion is extreme in nature that it is either something you are for or against.
        
        Meanwhile, the term pro-life is accurate because it is to make sure that the unborn child developing inside of the mother has a chance at life, so that he or she may be born and along with the chance to be born, has the chance to make decisions in life.
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Paulo Mendonça

Wanna stop the criminalization of abortion on the world? So please give a LIKE on brazillian’s movement on facebook in favor of abortion’s legalization, it will only take 5 seconds.
The link is: facebook.com/abortoeumdireito
Obrigado, my friends!
http://twitter.com/poetgranny Judy

My amazing grandmother, Cecilia Lawrence, fought fiercely for the unborn. She once gave me a Right to Life button that read: Love Life. It is that simple. Life is the most basic yet ultimate gift. To attack it is the most basic yet ultimate sin against our God-given humanity.