Terms of Debate

50 thoughts on Terms of Debate

1. Great post, piny. It makes me wonder how many of the “over 50% of Americans” that you keep on hearing about being pro-life actually hold the view described above and aren’t actually politically pro-life.

2. The way my mother refers to her own set of beliefs is “Personally pro-life, while politically pro-choice.” Which I’d say makes her pro-choice, period, but if she’s willing to publicly acknowledge that she shouldn’t have a say on what other women do, I’m not going to argue about it too strenuously.

3. I had this discussion with my sister shortly before last year’s election. She is an intelligent woman, so it was disturbing for me to discover that she really hadn’t thought about what it meant to support a “pro-life” candidate. She teared up talking about how the experience of having her first child has converted her to being “pro-life,” but when I probed a little, it was clear that she only meant that she wouldn’t personally choose an abortion. I’m not convinced that she’s considered the circumstances under which she or any other woman might have to make that decision with regard to a desired pregnancy (www.aheartbreakingchoice.com). But the most troubling aspect of the discussion was that she really hadn’t thought about the fact that, by supporting anti-choice candidates, she was attempting to take that decision away from me and every other woman in the country. If an intelligent, generally thoughtful woman like my sister didn’t comprehend what she was voting for, heaven help us.

4. Great post. I think this is a common problem. Many religious people aren’t willing to call themselves pro-choice for fear of the backlash from their communities. It’s as though they believe that by calling their beliefs pro-choice they somehow love abortion.

5. We’ll put it this way: if you’re on some sort of policy debate show or discussing politics, your personal beliefs mean absolutely squat. I don’t like seeing the terms get jumbled into meaninglessness because of people’s egotistical belief that I care what they would prefer vis-a-vis the continuation of their own pregnancy.

6. Yes. Exactly. Great post!

7. It seems most of the people I know, whether they call themselves pro-choice or pro-life agree on a few points. Late term abortion should only be done if medically neccessary. Most of them wouldn’t have an abortion themself, but allow that birthcontrol sometimes fails and stopping a pregnancy early can prevent bringing a child into a world that can’t take care of him/her, whether emotionally, physically, and/or financially. The main spot where they disagree is on where ‘life’ begins.

8. Agreeing with Nikita. People, especially women, who make a distinction of being personally pro-life but politically pro-choice are reacting to the very real pressures that have been placed on them all their life to be the “good girl” and they are taking the moment to reaffirm that they are one of the “good girls” who would never have an abortion herself even though she thinks it would be legal, she just has to make extra-special-sure that everyone who hears her say that knows it’s not because she’s a slutty von Slutmobile who would get one herself.

9. Also, we get into this a lot in the abortion debates — there is invariably someone who feels so strongly that abortion is wrong but doesn’t want it to be illegal and it drives me up a wall.

   If abortion is wrong and they feel that so passionately that they have to make it so abundantly clear with every interaction on the subject that everyone on thread knows they would NeverNeverNeverNeverEver have one, then they really should be pro-life and get it over with, because if it really is “murdering a child” to the extent that you would never have one yourself (and I don’t mean this in the “I want children and if I got pregnant I’d keep it,” sense but rather the “no matter what my circumstances were and no matter what risks were going on or how it would fuck up my life I would never kill the precious life inside of me” sense) then you should be completely against legalized abortion just like you would be against legal infanticide. I mean this to the depth of my toes. You should believe that women should go to jail for it for contracting a murder, no matter the circumstances of the pregnancy or the risk. Whether or not you should support contraception is up to you, but you should absolutely be against legalized abortion, if it’s such a tragedy.

   If, however, you’re not willing to own that reality, and you don’t feel that it’s the same thing as murder and women shouldn’t be jailed, then you need to just shut up about your personal distaste for abortion already because it’s immaterial. That’s the beauty of choice — you can choose not to have an abortion … and you can continue to choose not to in every opportunity that you have to make that choice!

   Put another way, imagine if I always chimed into threads about marriage equality with “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m straight. I would never eat another woman out because I personally don’t feel that it’s right and it grosses me the hell out, but I absolutely believe that those sodomites should have no legal requirements in their steady march toward hell. And it’s really such a tragedy about those queers getting bashed. But seriously, I’m not a dyke and I never will be.”

10. @Nikita – “It’s as though they believe that by calling their beliefs pro-choice they somehow love abortion.”

    That’s how the religious right has framed it. Instead of “pro-choice,” they call it “pro-abortion.” As if you just lurves you some abortions. Can’t get enough of them. And they say abortion’s a rite of passage for “teh feminists.” They say crazy crazy shit, and somehow it becomes “common wisdom” and the debate is framed as if there’s truth to this nonsense.

11. slutty von Slutmobile
    That’s so the new name for my car.

12. And now with proper spelling of blockquote!

    slutty von Slutmobile

    That’s so the new name for my car.

13. OMG, thank you SO much for this entry! This was very needed amid all the mess about Tiller’s murder, with many people, such as Jennifer and myself (Jennifer pretty much exactly described my own views) being unsure of which side we were considered to be on. Very much a relief! Excellent job clarifying! 🙂

14. Another annoying thing is that both Jennifer and Frank Schaffer’s qualifications – that we should reduce unwanted pregnancies and that abortion should be regulated by fetal development – are already part of the pro-choice reality. Roe v. Wade was all about regulating abortion by a trimester schedule of fetal development. While some pro-choicers will argue that all abortions should be legal post-viability, the fact is that the vast majority of abortions happen early on, so “fetal development” is a strawman in terms of policy and reality. And, of course, the right to access birth control is also central to pro-choicers.

15. Its certainly possible to never ever have an abortion but think its ok if others want one. There are parents that love their children but wouldn’t give their dying child a kidney and they are parents who would give a dying child their ONLY kidney or the “good” kidney and spend a lifetime on dialysis just so there child wont have to. Thos eparents wouldnt want to force their morals on others. Thats what this is about, forcing your morals on other people. Some people feel as strongly about NOT forcing their morals on others as they do about their personal choices thus they say “I’d NEVERNEVERNEVERNEVEREVER but you can.” people do this all the time but with other things.

16. Well, in my mother’s case, maybe it is a question of distinguishing herself from the slutty McSlutmobile herd, but I think it’s also a crutch that allows her to be politically pro-choice. And she used to be politically anti-choice, so this is a distinct improvement, from my point of view.

    I think there tends in many cases to be a grief element as well. My mother became militantly anti-choice when I was a child, after she had three first trimester miscarriages in a row and was finally told by her doctor not to try and get pregnant again because she had damn near bled to death with the third miscarriage. I suspect that this political stance (which was at odds with her general feminism) was part of her grieving process. So her gradual political shift over the past twenty years is a shift in the right direction, as far as I’m concerned. If she needs the crutch, I’ll give her the damn crutch and swallow my irritation.

    There is also the fact that my mom is not a public figure and is not involved in deciding abortion policy for anybody except herself. When it comes to private citizens who are basically well-meaning, I figure I have to try and meet them where they are. i.e. REMIND them that, oh hey, their personal views are actually totally in line with pro-choice politics, and that the sensible way to try and reduce abortion is to do what pro-choicers are already doing (ex: emphasizing contraception).

17. Oh my gods, Mighty Ponygirl win. That logical inconsistency always drove me crazy, both when I was pro-life (THAT kind) and whenever I turned out pro-choice. It’s illogical and morally offensive. If you really think that it’s a genocide, you sound like a tool for saying that the people who are committing it should be treated as victims rather than as perpetrators. If you don’t think that it’s a genocide, and if you’re not willing to look within and analyze what you really believe about it (which generally, with honesty, boils down to the idea that a fetus might be kind of a person but that a woman really is a person), then you have no business talking about how it should be made illegal and women should be criminalized. If you really think it should be made illegal because it’s murder, then you should believe that the women who have abortions should be charged with capital murder. There isn’t an inbetween – murder is either fucking murder or it’s not, and a lot of pro-lifers are entirely intellectually disingenuous about the whole thing.

18. Raincitygirl — with all respect to your mom, it’s fine if that’s her comfort zone, but I still feel very strongly that if I have to plant your feet in pro-choice space (like a feminist blog’s comments section) and make sure everyone knows what a superior, moral person I am because I’ve never had an abortion and never will have one but oh by the way this should be legal but the important thing here is that I’ve never had one and never will because it’s just such a tragedy … well, it makes me a bit of an asshole.

    I’m going to assume your mom doesn’t go that far.

19. I think “pro-life” is just like so many other terms we don’t want to cede to the Bad Guys… why should I leave the term “pro-life” to them? They ain’t fucking pro-life, they are pro-war, pro-starving the poor, pro-capital punishment, pro-eating meat, pro-letting the earth suffocate in greenhouse gases, pro lots of things I consider THE DENIAL of life. But because of this ONE ISSUE they get to call themselves “pro-life”? Fuck that shit.

    I am pro-life and believe women should have the right to abortion at any time. Now, let them chew on that one and twists themselves into knots over it. I won’t concede SHIT to them. Just like the term “Christian” or “Catholic”–I own it as much as they do. They will not throw me out without a fight. The boys club does NOT get to set the terms, I set my OWN terms. That is what feminism IS.

    I do not go around calling myself pro-life, since it’s obnoxious and as you point out, often means nothing. But at times like this? I have been calling myself “pro-life but in favor of abortion rights” nonstop for the last three days. They can choke on it.

20. I also believe that all life is precious, in utero and out, but that no one should be forced to carry a pregnancy to term. I am also pro- life. We are all pro- life! The debate is over. Let’s join hands and sing kumbaya.

21. People, especially women, who make a distinction of being personally pro-life but politically pro-choice are reacting to the very real pressures that have been placed on them all their life to be the “good girl” and they are taking the moment to reaffirm that they are one of the “good girls” who would never have an abortion herself

    Bullshit. Nobody has EVER mistaken me for anything resembling a “good girl”…

    Of course, I have considered abortion myself. My mother had an illegal abortion. I feel very strongly about the matter.

    Some of us refuse to be named by others’ hypocritical, lying standards, and we name ourselves. For me, it is about priests naming me, and I will decide for myself what “prolife” is, and IT AIN’T THEM.

22. Excellent, excellent post.

    Every since those disheartening statistics were released, I’ve wondered how many of the supposed “pro-lifers” were of the personally-pro-life-politically-pro-choice variety. I’m taking this as anecdotal evidence that a large portion of the American population is deeply confused as to what the terms of the debate actually mean, in legal and political practice.

    It also reinforces my visceral hatred of that term. Of course people want to call themselves “pro-life”. Who isn’t pro-(as in not-anti-)life? I dig life. It’s pretty cool being alive, like way better than being dead, I’d like to think. What a stupid, meaningless, manipulative term.

    Again, thanks for this post. I’ll be e-mailing it to all of my linguistically-confused friends & relatives.

23. Oh, and this is already sort of addressed in the post, but I really feel that when you have trained women to knee-jerk say “I would never have one” in order to save face with their friends and family when they’re talking about abortion rights, it’s basically a way of taking away choice.

24. Piny, I read these pleas for understanding from “pro-life” folks and I just get tired. So often, I’ve heard pro-choicers be accused of hating children, being slutty (OK, so I’ll cop to that, LOL), or women who have had abortions as being irresponsible, or flightly if they don’t show the proper grief and remorse after.

    I was *relieved* after I had my abortion–I don’t want to get into the specifics of why, as it will come off as me trying to get validation for a choice that frankly is no one’s business. I’m not going to apologize for it. And I get very irritated when I hear pleas for understanding from people like Jennifer and Frank because I never hear the voices of people like them in defense of me or women like me. If I had a dime for every time I’ve heard about how much so-and-so now really respects life after having a baby (or after his wife had a baby), I could retire right now. I’ve got news for these folks: there are people out there who have had children and terminated a subsequent pregnancy. I somehow doubt that they are callous about the value of life.

    I’m sorry if my personal and private choice makes some people uncomfortable, but you know, it was my choice; it was the right one for me. And it was my business.

    And WORD to malathion’s post. These provisions that people keep talking about already exist as part of Roe. It’s not as if I could walk into a clinic at eight months and just get an abortion. Late term abortions are medically necessary. Saying how much you want provisions that already exist only plays into the right’s rhetoric about how women are getting late term abortions willy-nilly because we want to fit into prom dresses or are just that flighty and silly.

    So, yes. It’s great that Jennifer and Frank are basically pro-choice. But FFS, I wish these people would own it. Sit by us icky nasty slutty women who had abortions and aren’t draping ourselves in sackcloth and ashes. Really. You won’t get slut cooties and we won’t kill your children or hold abortion parties. Double pinky swear.

    And again, if I sound snarky or really pissed off, it’s because I’m sick to the teeth of the rhetoric flung my way. And unlike the folks like Frank, the so-called pro-life movement has done great damage to many women who needed abortions, birth control, EC, and D&X’s after miscarriages or still births.

25. Oh, and this is already sort of addressed in the post, but I really feel that when you have trained women to knee-jerk say “I would never have one” in order to save face with their friends and family when they’re talking about abortion rights, it’s basically a way of taking away choice.

    I thought I just said, I DID think about having one? I’ve thought of eating meat too. In the end, have decided against both.

    And my mother had one and contributed to NARAL till the day she died… why would I be trying to “save face” with her?

    Please stop generalizing about ALL women’s motives, okay? Here it is (wait for it, you knew it was coming): I was marching for abortion rights before you were born, and you’re welcome. I think I have EARNED THE RIGHT to call myself whatever I please. My problem is with the hypocrisy of the TERM “pro-life” and what it MEANS. The right wing has reduced that term to ONE ISSUE and I will not agree to their terms. We must expose their hypocrisy and co-opting their bullshit terminology is one way to do it.

    “Pro life” does not mean denying health care, it does not mean dropping bombs on innocents. People who take those positions HAVE NO RIGHT to call themselves “pro-life”–and yes, I tell em so, too.

    Jesus H, I gotta take a break from this thread, or blow. Adios.

26. Yes, please do that, Daisy, because you’re being a total prick.

    MPG didn’t say that you* didn’t consider the options or make a decision. She argued that pressuring women to publically aver that abortion is evil and that they would never ever do it is, in practice, a way to prevent them from choosing it freely. I think that’s a good point.

    *Wasn’t talking about you at all, so far as I could tell.

27. It’s possible that women who say they are pro-life but have no problem with legalized abortion aren’t suffering from some kind of false consciousness perpetrated by the patriarchy. It’s possible they aren’t just saying it to make themselves look good for daddy.

    In fact, it might be that they think that abortion IS murder, but they also pragmatically recognize it as — in the current configuration of society — the only means of self-defense available to some women. Who they recognize as also falling under the category of “life” in “pro-life.” They might think of abortion in terms of trade-offs, and not in terms of the absolute rights of the mother or the absolute rights of the fetus.

    They might regret the configurations of society that make this form of self-defense so necessary. Many of them probably try very hard to change those configurations, doing what they can with their limited power to work for stuff like affordable healthcare and childcare and fair wages.

    They might also know that the vast majority of women who have abortions do NOT make the decision lightly, but they might understand the current system as open to abuse, nonetheless. After all, in a world where it’s possible for the patriarchy to make us feel pressured into calling ourselves “pro-life” it certainly is possible that parents and boyfriends, even employers, can make us feel pressured into having an abortion that we wouldn’t have chosen on our own, right? And in a world where single mothers overwhelmingly remain at the bottom of the economic ladder, benefiting from other people’s “pro-choice” activism still might mean that you didn’t have much of a choice at all.

    I wouldn’t call myself by either label. Both are vast oversimplifications.

28. It’s possible they aren’t just saying it to make themselves look good for daddy.

    This is how you would describe being a young fertile woman with male relatives who believe that Dr. Tiller deserved what he got?

29. And as to the rest of it: I don’t actually have a problem with people who reject both terms. I don’t agree that they are vast oversimplifications, exactly. I do agree that they are based on a flawed and misogynistic understanding of pregnancy and termination. I think, like Daisy, that “pro-life” as an activist force is downright lethal–forget altruistic.

    However! “Pro-life” has a specific meaning when elected officials hear it. That meaning specifically relates to the willingness to make elective abortion illegal. And so when you use it in these conflationary ways, you subtract a lot of nuance and a lot of good sense from the debate. You allow anti-choicers–straight up anti-choicers–to use your compassion and moderation as cover for their highly specific and totally uncompromising agenda. You give them the weight of your numbers. You reinforce the “life” in “pro-life” and add to the already-sustained impression that pro-choicers are anti-life.

    It’s just bad political diction.

30. PFNTS–You know, when I was open about the fact that I’d get an abortion if I ever got pregnant–long before I ever needed an abortion–the shit I caught could have fertilized every farm in the US.

    Yes, some people truly do find abortion abhorrent but are very pro-choice. But it’s folly to assume that women aren’t shamed and that they don’t face any sort of subtle- and not-so-subtle pressure to toe the line.

    I’m glad that some people here have had a different experience. However, it has not been MY experience or the experience of women I know and love. And I live in a state that is renowned for its supposed liberalism. ‘Kay?

    Here’s the thing: you can acknowledge that some women can be and are pressured into getting abortions either through economics or through personal relationships (we also face tremendous pressue to have children and/or adopt them out–hello, I’ve been there) without ignoring the fact that when it comes to getting medical treatment, women are not allowed the same rights as men.

    And I’m sure I won’t make any friends in saying this, but even in the best of circumstances, I’d have an abortion if I got pregnant again. I did not do this out of “self-defense.” I did it because I did not want to have a child, I did not want to be a mother, and I did not want to be pregnant. Let me repeat that–I do not want to be pregnant. So while it’s great to enable women who want children to have them–and I’m on board with that and am down with and have worked on pushing for the economic and social justice all women need in order to have children (and do other things, like have a good life in general)–not all of us do. Not all of us are particularly excited by the prospect of putting our bodies through the wringer for 40 weeks. (And before anyone mentions the adoption option–I’ve seen what giving children up for adoption did to two of my friends, and I’ll have no part of that, thanks.)

    Not everyone wants to have children, even in the best of circumstances. Pregnancy is hardly a cakewalk. So please–don’t assume that we would all just birth if we just had the opportunties and the resources. Some of us would, certainly. But some of us wouldn’t.

31. when you have trained women to knee-jerk say “I would never have one” in order to save face with their friends and family when they’re talking about abortion rights, it’s basically a way of taking away choice.

    I think, in this context, it’s incredibly important to keep politics and ethics separate. Women should have the right to determine what happens to their bodies, regardless of what I think of their decisions, morally. It, in no way, undermines my support of reproductive freedom to say that I oppose abortion in some or all circumstances.

    Wanna know what I think is profoundly immoral? Publishing a white-supremacist newsletter. Does that detract from my commitment to 1st Amendment rights? Not at all.

32. Sorry piny, but I must agree with Daisy. If politicians believe that “pro-life” is pro life, then we should attempt to reverse that. If the issue is too far gone, then bad political diction will have become a permanent part of our politics.

33. then they really should be pro-life and get it over with, because if it really is “murdering a child” to the extent that you would never have one yourself … then you should be completely against legalized abortion just like you would be against legal infanticide.

    I disagree. It’s a question of rights, not morals. You can believe abortion is morally wrong to the point of being evil, and still believe a woman has the right to autonomy over her body. I do agree that it’s incredibly obnoxious and irrelevant to go on about it though.

    I also think it’s something that’s very easy to say. I used to be one of those people… I didn’t bring it up during discussions about choice because as MPG says, it’s immaterial… but I always thought I would never have an abortion because it would be morally wrong. Then I had a pregnancy scare in a situation where I really, really did not want to be pregnant. I was this close to booking the appointment at the abortion clinic before finding out it was a false alarm. It’s really easy to judge people in a situation you’ve never been in. Much less easy to hold to your moral high ground when you’re pregnant and terrified.

34. While I think that pro-choice is a misnomer–I’m pro-reproductive rights (including the right to have children no matter your class or color and the right to access to birth control and effective medical treatement)–I don’t think that “pro-life” is the way to go. The rhetoric around abortion (and frankly, birth control) is more about policing women’s sexual behavior, and shaming/punishing women. So politicians who buy into “pro-life” often buy into this rhetoric about careless, immoral women (or women who would have had children if they could have but are now convulsed with guilt and grief over this horrible, horrible act).

    I agree that the so-called pro-life side has fuck all to do with life. However, the rhetoric around the larger anti-choice movement is more about a moral panic over women’s behavior.

35. The issue is too far gone. There can be no reclamation of the term “pro-life” because they have such a stranglehold on the semiotics and the language. They are funded, they have a huge media juggernaut behind them, and and entire generation of people who have been trained to think of Abortion as something that “other” (read: poor slutty) women do.

    So, yes. It’s great that Jennifer and Frank are basically pro-choice. But FFS, I wish these people would own it. Sit by us icky nasty slutty women who had abortions and aren’t draping ourselves in sackcloth and ashes. Really. You won’t get slut cooties and we won’t kill your children or hold abortion parties. Double pinky swear.

    QFE. With friends like this, eh?

36. I also think it’s something that’s very easy to say. I used to be one of those people… I didn’t bring it up during discussions about choice because as MPG says, it’s immaterial… but I always thought I would never have an abortion because it would be morally wrong. Then I had a pregnancy scare in a situation where I really, really did not want to be pregnant. I was this close to booking the appointment at the abortion clinic before finding out it was a false alarm. It’s really easy to judge people in a situation you’ve never been in. Much less easy to hold to your moral high ground when you’re pregnant and terrified.

    I went through much the same thing. It’s really easy to spout off from on high what you would or wouldn’t do until it’s staring you in the face. And when it does, and if you do decide to go through with the pregnancy, you’re still exercising a choice and unless you would have preferred to have been forced to go through with the pregnancy rather than decide for yourself, you’re pro-choice. But people don’t beatify the importance of the choice itself, they would prefer to beatify this moral structure they have in place for themselves that declares that there was no choice. It drives me up a friggin’ wall.

    I disagree. It’s a question of rights, not morals. You can believe abortion is morally wrong to the point of being evil, and still believe a woman has the right to autonomy over her body.

    I know what you’re saying — the whole “you shouldn’t be compelled to donate a kidney” argument. But again, if abortion is the same as child murder, than I can’t see any sort of bodily autonomy argument trumping that in a legal or moral context. I could declare that my child isn’t “entitled” for me to feed it, that my bodily autonomy does not require that I whip out the tit or reach for the formula, but when it dies, I’ll be held responsible. That’s really what it comes down to… the life of another being: but again, if you want to play in that arena, you have to play by the full rules. If it’s an evil, then we shouldn’t support it as a society any more than we support any other evil, and we should have punishments for people who perpetrate it. Jail times, state executions, etc. This is where most rational people will step back and realize that it’s not the same, and that while abortion may be unfortunate or a loss of potential or even a 3/5ths sort of thing, it’s not the same as murdering a toddler.

37. I used to describe myself as personally pro-life but politically pro-choice due to my discomfort with abortion (I grew up in a very pro fetal rights household)- until I realized it was totally obnoxious and unnecessary. I mean look, I’d be happier in a perfect world where no one ever needed abortion, but this IS NOT that world and until we live in that world, my feelings on abortion do not matter, what matter is that the only person who has a say is the woman who is pregnant. What I would do is totally inconsequential. End of story. And the fact of the matter is that my pregnancies have shown me that while I do value fetal life, I value women’s lives a hell of a lot more.

38. It’s sort of like everybody who doesn’t drink is a Prohibitionist. Doesn’t make a lick of sense, but this is what happens when we let the Prohibitionists define the terminology.

39. Ha, yeah I like that libdevil. I’m personally a Prohibitionist, but politically I don’t think alcohol should be illegal. Not only is it ridiculous, it makes me sound like an ass. I wish the faux-lifers would get that.

40. But that’s just it. You may practice Prohibition, but to call yourself a Prohibitionist means something entirely different. It means that you believe that alcohol should be prohibited by law.

    And again, there is a huge gulf between something like alcohol consumption and something like abortion. You can personally believe that it is not a good idea to drink alcohol for yourself for any number of reasons that can apply only to you: you may be on medications that could interact badly, you could have family histories of addiction or physical or mental disorders, you could just not like the taste or the feeling, and still understand that at a personal level, it’s really all about your relationship with alcohol, and that’s fine. You can personally prohibit yourself from drinking alcohol, but to call yourself a “prohibitionist” is silly. It’s like calling yourself a feminist but only being interested in advancing your own rights as a woman.

    If you believe that abortion is murder, that it’s evil, that it’s taking of a life, then for God’s sake own it. Like INTPagan said: It’s either murder or it isn’t. If it’s murder, then how do you ever rationalize that it’s ok for OTHER PEOPLE to murder but you personally have decided not to?

41. And this whole awful mess is why I generally refuse to use the term “pro-life” – to me, it’s absurd that someone can be “pro-life” and applaud Bush for the Global Gag rule, which basically ensured that many women and children (and, yes, fetuses. Apparently their lives only count if they can be used as a device for punishing women) died preventable deaths.

    So I prefer to use “anti-legal-abortion” to refer to the movement as a whole doesn’t want abortion to be legal, because there’s less room for confusion and disgusting irony.

42. Calling yourself pro-life but believing in pro-choice values seems incredibly similar to “Oh, I believe in equality for women and equal pay and all that, but don’t call me a feminist.” The label has stereotypical connotations with which the person doesn’t want to identify, and only education on what that label really means can change their perceptions.

43. My favorite phrasing of where I stand on these issues is ‘reproductive justice.’ Every person* should have access to what she needs to control her body and her reproductive functions. It’s not just about having access to abortion services, it’s about having access to reproductive health care, period. Even if you’re Nadya Suleiman. Having access to safe and legal abortion is a big part of it, but as important are the rights of disadvantaged people to have children should they want them, to not be sterilized against their will or without their knowledge, to have access to services that help them become good parents of happy, healthy, well-educated children.

    And no, I don’t want a pony. I don’t think these things are too much to ask for. I may never get them, but I’ll never stop wanting them.

    * Some of this applies to men too — for one thing, there should be more male-controlled contraceptive options available. And should we reach a point where technology allows a person who doesn’t have a uterus to become pregnant, they’ll get to decide whether to keep or terminate their pregnancies.

44. And no, I don’t want a pony.

    {lip quivering} FINE, THEN! I DON’T WANT YOU EITHER!!!!

    {runs off bawling}

45. I used to be among the “I would never have an abortion, but…” crowd, until I really thought about it and realized that it’s a bad idea to talk about what you would never do, because you never know until you’re staring down the barrel of that situation. I like to think that I’ll never have one, because I like to think that my birth control will never fail, and I like to think I’ll be inclined to have the kid if it did. But I have to acknowledge that if I’m ever in that position, I might well look at my circumstances and say, “Holy shit! Out! Out!” And to ignore that fact would be to put myself among, well, these folks.

    The event that pushed me fully in the pro-choice direction was, strangely enough, feeling a coworker’s baby hiccup in utero. I thought, “Dude, that’s kind of like a little person in there,” and then I thought, “The thought of being forced to carry that around against my will is terrifying and devastating.” Yeah, it’s a life, in my opinion. On the continuum of Life, I place “fetus” somewhere below “person” and above “azalea.” Above or below “puppy”? I don’t know. But I certainly don’t feel it’s my place to tell anyone where they should put it. And I certainly don’t feel the right to judge anyone else for deciding not to be saddle her own personal body and life with the burden of an unwanted pregnancy. I mean, good lord. Thus: unabashedly pro-choice.

    So maybe the “I would never, but it’s okay if others do” crowd isn’t completely cowardly. Maybe they just haven’t made the effort or had the opportunity to refine their feelings on the subject. I figure that as long as they still add the “it’s okay if others do,” there’s a jumping-off point to work on the “I would never.” It’s like chocolatepie said about identifying as a feminist; education on what the label really means can change people’s perceptions.

46. {lip quivering} FINE, THEN! I DON’T WANT YOU EITHER!!!!

    {runs off bawling}

    Oh no! I meant…! ::dissolves into a puddle of embarrassed consternation::

47. Pingback: links for 2009-06-05 « Embololalia

48. Mighty Ponygirl, that was entirely my point. People who call themselves personally pro-life but politically pro-choice are doing the very same thing. They believe, for reasons I don’t even really care about, that abortion is not a good idea for them. Period. Therefore, I suppose you would say they practice pro-life (err, however you would turn that into a noun so it makes sense). To call yourself pro-life, though, when you believe in keeping abortion legal, is just as absurd. That is not what pro-life means. That is what pro-choice means. It is kind of insultingly irrelevant to talk about why you may never practice a particular aspect of reproductive choice because, just like it’s kind of insultingly irrelevant for me to mention how much I drink when I’m talking about the legality of alcohol. If it should be legal, my own beliefs are irrelevant.

    The point is that pro-life people who define themselves as such but don’t actually want to force women to give birth against their will, or send them to jail, or who don’t even see an 8-week old fetus as equally person-y as the woman it’s growing inside: these people aren’t actually pro-life at all. They are pro-choice. They don’t actually believe it’s murder, otherwise they would treat women who get abortions the same way they treat anyone else who hires someone else to kill someone. You can absolutely believe that abortion is morally questionable and decide you will never, ever choose one for yourself. That’s the beauty of choice. My point, though, is that the people who believe that (and they usually throw the word murder around) while saying they want to keep abortion legal, are actually pro-choice. It’s just as silly as my example–the believe personally in “life,” but their beliefs support choice. I don’t know and don’t care how people rationalize that way of thinking, but they OBVIOUSLY do. I don’t want them to “own” it and fully embrace the anti-choice wackos. Honestly, that’s absurd. I want them to be ok with identifying as pro-choice. I want them to feel comfortable with saying “pro-choice” and realizing it doesn’t mean you have to get an abortion. It doesn’t even mean you have to feel like abortion would ever be a choice you that you could make. I want them to realize “pro-choice” people are just as supportive of mothers. I want “pro-choice” not to connote abortion only, but the choice to all reproductive health, including better access to birth control, pre- and neo-natal care, among tons of other things, and everything women need to make safe, informed decisions about her own health.

49. Calling yourself pro-life but believing in pro-choice values seems incredibly similar to “Oh, I believe in equality for women and equal pay and all that, but don’t call me a feminist.”

    Oh, the overlap there is amazing. I used to be in both crowds, and simultaneously. Fancy that. (It took a very short time before the logical and moral disconnect on abortion made me decide that either my head would explode or I had to pick a fucking side, though.)

50. “Pro-life”ers are forgetting something very important I think: abortions pretty much will always happen, and in some cases will always have to happen.

    If you make abortion entirely illegal then women who want to choose an abortion will get a potentially very dangerous and deadly backstreet abortion and women who have to have an abortion to save their own life will have to just die. Or get a very risky illegal abortion.

    Essentially, pro-life winds up pro-death.

    So how do people that don’t find abortions acceptable in circumstances where they aren’t medically necessary end up using the term ‘pro-life’?

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