# For pro-choicers: Is there anything "tragic" about an abortion? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 8, 2005, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-pro-choicers-is-there-anything-tragic-about-an-abortion/316136 "2005-08-08T17:45:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-pro-choicers-is-there-anything-tragic-about-an-abortion/316136/81 "2005-08-10T00:20:50Z")
**El Zagna** --my apologies. ---
**Author:** ![beagledave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@beagledave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beagledave)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-pro-choicers-is-there-anything-tragic-about-an-abortion/316136/82 "2005-08-10T00:26:32Z")
> [@eleanorigby](#): > > Pro-choice has nothing to do with being “pro-slavery”. It sounds a great deal like an inflammatory debate point used by the pro-birth “side”. I was talking about folks framing a debate…hell if you don’t like the slavery issue…take child labor laws. Are folks opposed to child labor “anti choice in relation to business practices”? I notice that you chose to punt on actually answering the question I asked…which is probably an answer itself. Take ANY political issue…I know, let’s try school vouchers. Folks in FAVOR of school vouchers will often use phrases like “Parents for School Choice”…I guess you’d agree that folks who disagree with voucher programs are ANTI CHOICE, right? Either that or you’d have to agree that the folks often use phrases like “choice” to frame a debate in a certain way, > [@](#): > > I think it’s intellectually dishonest to attempt to equate the two terms by drawing such an analogy. It is not the pro-choice folks who want to condemn a woman and a child to their unhappy (and in the case of multiple congenital anomalies, tragic and brief) lives. Some choice, eh? Don’t get raped, don’t be a victim of incest, but if you are–too bad, so sad–YOU, the woman, pay all your life. The man? Not so much (but that’s another thread). And the is Just and Right and Good–why and how, again? Nice sermon about how heartless pro life folks are… :dubious: Not surprisingly, it has squat to do with the point I (and even pro choice poster \*\* Lilairen\*\* said “Basically, it’s an attempt to pull the rhetorical rug out from under the other side by defining the things they think are central as tangential to the central question.”) am making about the way that language can frame a debate. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-pro-choicers-is-there-anything-tragic-about-an-abortion/316136/83 "2005-08-10T04:36:50Z")
> [@beagledave](#): > > Are you seriously suggesting that because one term is more offensive than the other…that the **relative** “lesser” offensiveness makes “anti choice” okey dokey to use? > > I don’t why terms have to “even out” in order to suggets that reasonable people not use them. No, I was not seriously (or otherwise) suggesting that. I said that somehow, “anti-choice” doesn’t quite have the ring to it that “baby-killer” does. ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-pro-choicers-is-there-anything-tragic-about-an-abortion/316136/84 "2005-08-10T14:14:40Z")
**beagledave** -I didn’t answer because I paid heed to the OP. Start another thread if you want this to fruitless “debate” to continue–I am not interested in sparring with you and further hijacking this thread. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-pro-choicers-is-there-anything-tragic-about-an-abortion/316136.md?page=4)