I am sure it has happened. That is also abhorrent to me. What’s your point?
These terms “Pro-Life” and “Pro-Choice” are not only incredible stupid but also completely meaningless. What actually matters is what specific restrictions a person believes should be placed on abortion or conversely, what specific abortion rights should women have. Very few people believe there should be zero restrictions on abortions.
Person A:
Calls themself Pro-Choice
Believes Roe vs. Wade was incorrectly decided and should be overturned
Wants it to be up to states to decide legality
abortion is morally wrong and would never have one
minors should have parental consent
no government funding
only in the first trimester
no so-called partial birth abortions
woman should have a 3 day waiting period
woman should see an ultrasound beforehand
Person B:
Calls themself Pro-Choice
Believes in zero restrictions for abortions at any stage of the pregnancy
Wants abortion to be actively used in a government mandated China-styled population growth limit
While I agree with LonghornDave’s argument - that this is in many cases semantics and soudbites that don’t fully ensapsulate positions very well - I have to point out that many of his examples on the Person A list are not from people who are pro-choice or even ascribe the position to their views. Rather, they are ways for anti-choice people to peck away at abortion rights in the hopes that each drop will lead to the flooding of Roe v. Wade being overturned and abortions becoming illegal. They are not exactly hiding this fact either.
I also feel that “Wants abortion to be actively used in a government mandated China-styled population growth limit” is silly hyperbole and I don’t feel that anyone feels this way but even if there was a wackadoo who felt this way, how does one reconcile “government mandated” with “choice” exactly?
The point is that the word “choice” used in the abortion rights debate is stupid (as is the term “pro-life”). It is so absurdly vague that it has absolutely no meaning what-so-ever. It isn’t that the term simply doesn’t encapsulate a position very well, it’s that it creates a false dichotomy.
The vast majority of people in this country believe that abortion should be restricted. Does that mean that the vast majority of people are “Pro-Life”? The vast majority of people in this country also believe that abortion should be permitted to some extent. Does that mean that the vast majority of people are “Pro-Choice”? Of course the answer to both questions is yes from the perspective of the main lobbying groups for each side and no in reality.
I guess I’m going to take the view that the I believe the vast majority of people in this country believe that there should be limited abortion rights. Therefore, the specific limitations that should be in place should be the debate, if we actually wanted to have a grown-up debate. Unfortunately we instead have the situation where a certain segment of people on the so-called “Pro-Choice” side of the debate believe that any change to the status quo is an attack against the very idea that any abortion should be allowed. This of course makes them also guilty of a slippery slope fallacy. They, of course, have a good reason to believe this since the “Pro-Life” side essentially does use the tactic of chipping away at abortion rights in an attempt to placate the vocal minority of voters that actually want (or says they want) all abortion rights removed. This makes this group of so-called “Liberals” guilty of being wrong but for the right reasons, which is a position they often find themselves in.
The stupidity of all of this means that we end up with two political parties that don’t really want to change anything they just want to retain the ability to rally their troops to fight the pure evil of the opposition.
I guess I don’t understand why people here and elsewhere can’t sit back and agree that what we have is a situation where: 1) it is morally wrong to force a woman to take a pregnancy to term when she doesn’t want to; and 2) it is morally wrong to destroy a life / potential life just at the discretion of another life. Therefore, there really isn’t a perfectly correct choice, so instead we should do something pretty similar to what the current situation is: allow certain restricted abortion rights. It also wouldn’t hurt to have people actually acknowledge that abortion rights should have been determined by the legislature and not by a group of judges.
Finally, I think that people should stop allowing themselves to be categorized in one of two silly boxes and should instead actually state what their real position is on the matter. This would include not even using terms like “Pro-Choice” and “Pro-Life”. If they don’t want to get into a long drawn out explanation of their position, they could instead use more reasonable terms like they are for moderate abortion rights (to fit what I believe most of the “Pro-Choice” group is) or no abortion rights (minority of what I believe most of the “Pro-Life” group is) or very limited abortion rights (majority of what I believe most of the “Pro-Life” group is).
OK, I get it about the case on semantics, but IMO it is good for people to look at where they stand on the issue, by understanding what is behind the terms pro-choice and anti-choice. Despite the great big grey areas we are seeing, logical conclusions are still spelled out, because the goal of pro-choice is not more abortion, but the goal of anti-choice is NO abortions, and LonghornDave’s silly hyperbole must not go unmatched.
Person A calls themself Pro-life
Believes that abortion is wrong for anyone at anytime, even if the fetus is the product of rape or incest, or the mother is a minor. The pregnancy is here by the will of God so the ONLY moral choice is to carry the pregnancy to term.
Is 100% certain that life begins at conception, and that the fetus has a soul.
Accepts that women should be convinced in any way possible that it is morally wrong to choose abortion, even if lies need to be told as if they were scientific facts. Also guilt, trickery, and fear are OK to use in an attempt to convince the woman of God’s will for her to carry her pregnancy to term.
Wants the US to tell China what to do concerning it’s population policies.
Person B calls themself Pro-life
Believes that women should bare many babies to populate the earth, especially
Christian babies.
Advocates the idea that a woman should be pregnant, postpartum, or the caregiver of babies for most of her adult life.
Only wants couples to use natural birth control, like the rhythm method, and a natural childbirth is also preferred, with extra points from God for dying while in labour.
Is not completely against the murder of abortion providers.
Believes that the vagina is a clown car.
Heck, why not create a pool thread with a check box for each of these options and a rating, so if you support 20 ideas that restrict abortion and 23 ideas that enable access to abortion, you’re a net “pro choice” of 3.
About as well as a pro-life person who supports the death penalty, I imagine. People can rationalize their way through pretty much anything.
Edit:
Hey, that’s not a bad idea. Could even be fun. But I think some people might start objecting on some of the different checkboxes.
“Hey, being against Roe V. Wade isn’t being pro-life! I simply don’t like the Surpeme Court deciding things!” Could be an issue, is all I’m saying.
Pro-life sentiment grew because the GOP pushed it out as this season’s hot-button social issues divider.
A half-dozen political scientists published a paper called “A Theory of Political Parties,” which found that “parties no longer compete to win elections by giving voters the policies voters want. Rather, as coalitions of intense policy demanders, they have their own agendas and aim to get voters to go along.”
Ezra Klein discusses it here.
The interesting thing is that the poll was “Always-Most-Few-Never” and the discussion has shifted to definition of pro-choice/pro-life.
And when dealing with the reality of the growth of the pro-life (aka women-haters-kill-the-slut) movement, that reality is explained away.
So much for fact-based.
I was bombarded with sex education every year between the ages of about 9 until 18. Anyone my age that was publicly schooled knows how babies are formed. They know how to use contraception, but also knows that the only 100% effective contraception is abstinence. We know how AIDS works and how you get it. In a world with AIDS, you *must *take responsibility for your sexual behavior. I’m pretty liberal on almost every issue, but I have a hard time understanding how people can be so irresponsible with sex in a world in which it can quite literally kill you.
Odd, really, that my “liberal” education steers me toward a more moderate or even conservative abortion viewpoint, but if the “conservative” abstinence-only education ever hits the schools I’d be forced to adopt the more liberal view since people would become ignorant of the realities of sex… Perhaps both sides of the abortion debate are self-defeating and we’ll experience a constant pendulum effect on the issue.
Edut: I’m sure that, among people my age, allowing abortion for rape, safety, and possibly even severe genetic reasons remain popular.
I don’t know about that. I’m strongly pro-choice, pro-abortion, whatever you want to call it, and I happen to agree with you 100% that exceptions for rape and incest put the lie to morality-based arguments against abortion.
However, I agree with the statement that “Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided”, and as a matter of law, I believe states have the authority to prohibit abortion under the Constitution as it currently exists.
I think you have missed the point of the examples I gave. They are meant to be absurd in that people with very different almost opposing viewpoints can both self-identify with the same side. Neither is meant to be a mainstream viewpoint of the “Pro-Choice” side. On the other hand, your examples are pointless in that they describe people with almost matching views. Unless you honestly think that all people identifying as “Pro-Life” have the same viewpoint, but otherwise I don’t see your point.
Without knowing your position, I think it is possible that there are people out there that you would characterize as “Pro-Life” but call themselves “Pro-Choice” and conversely some people you consider “Pro-Choice” call themselves “Pro-Life”. Possibly not, but I guarantee that is the case with some of the people on this message board. That to me speaks to the completely pointlessness with these terms.
There is no group of people that considers themselves “anti-choice”. Now, if you want to do your own grouping of people that want to stop all abortions and call them “anti-choice” then fine, but it is hardly illuminating when you then say their goal is no abortions. It’s circular reasoning. Furthermore, I can guarantee you that there are people that self-identify as “Pro-Choice” that do want more abortions. I’m sure there are some on this message board that may come along shortly. It may not be the view of the majority of people self-identifying as “Pro-Choice”, but that will be the case.
It seems perfectly logical to me that some people may want more abortions. If I don’t think there is anything immoral about extracting a lump of flesh from a woman that I consider morally equivalent to a parasitic tumor and I know that X number of women will have unwanted pregnancies and <X number of women get abortions then why wouldn’t I feel fine with increasing the number of abortions from <X to X?
How can someone say they are pro choice and say they are fine with states prohibiting abortion? Should I report you for trolling, “pro abortion” person?
Becasue they believe in a different way of enforcing the law than you?
If you feel strongly that the terms are pointless, then what alternatives do you suggest? You state that no group considers themselves to be anti-choice, of course not, just as pro-choice is not pro-abortion, yet people who would ban abortions entirely do exist, and they might be less hypocritical then people who let anti-choice run the show while denying women reproductive choices except in special circumstances.
Or maybe these gray area anti-choice people have not fully thought through their position and have aligned themselves with a group morally opposed to abortion in all cases. My point is that grey area people need to figure out for themselves what it means to be against reproductive choice, of which abortion rights are a part of, and recognize that they may be giving half assed support to a group who does have the goal of taking away a woman’s access and right to a safe and legal abortion.
So I do understand what the point of your absurd pro-choice opposing viewpoints list was about, but I do not see the same with anti-choice who are morally opposed to abortion, and see only one choice - no choice; even if they are only the minority group who seems to be running the show, and living off the misnomer “pro-life”.
And as far as people who are “pro-abortion”, they are not pro-choice, unless they are pro only their own abortion, and would allow others to decide what is best for themselves.
No more than I should report you for misquoting me. I didn’t say I was fine with states prohibiting abortion. I said states have the authority to prohibit abortion under the Constitution. That doesn’t mean that they should, or that I don’t favor a constitutional amendment preventing them from doing it, just that they can.
But if states could prohibit abortions, a bunch of states would prohibit abortions. You want this to happen? Please note that you cannot have some theoretical exercise of “states rights” without conceding that in the real world, one without Row v. Wade, abortion would be heavily restricted.
Are you a Ron Paul supporter? That would explain such silliness… But no pro choice person would let the states decide unless they drank the Ron Paul Kool Aid (and even he identifies as pro-life as far as I know).
You still have yet to explain what you meant by “pro abortion” too. That phrase does not compute even (or especially) as a semantic exercise.
sigh I don’t think states should be have the power to summarily execute Klansmen. Do you think that says anything about what I think of the Klan?
Wait…you don’t? You cross-burning racist! :mad:
Even assuming that’s true, that doesn’t make the people who oppose choice any less anti-choice. You might as well try to claim that someone who supports slavery isn’t anti-freedom because they don’t personally use the words “anti-freedom” to describe themselves. They oppose women making choices; therefore they are anti-choice regardless of what they call themselves.
I’d assume it meant someone who supports having abortions for their own sake; outside of some lone loony somewhere I doubt such people exist, but it sounds like the sort of thing “pro-lifers” would attribute to their enemies.