You and another guy willingly volunteer to go to Mars. When you get there, the other guy has an allergic reaction to the Martian atmosphere and must be connected to your bloodstream for nine months until you come back. You will have to eat enough food and breath enough oxygen to keep him alive. You might die from doing this, but the other guy will die if you don’t. Furthermore, once you get back to Earth, the guy might die if you are disconnected. You might have to carry him until one or both of you dies.
A word you’ve embedded–“willingly”–changes the sense of the original analogy significantly. Can you answer Polerius’s? What of a scenario where one person had no influence over the situation and, more than that, the person imposed upon created the circumstance in question?
We don’t have to follow this far, AFAIC. These analogies usually start to get modified and twisted and qualified beyond usability. But you changed the scenario a good bit with your counter.
Amen brother! I wished people could just get real and make up names of sides that are actually debate-relevent rather than make it look like a simple battle of good and evil. That’s the problem with this country, people have a narrow mind and no sense of reality, and see an issue only as having two sides, one side the “good guys”, and the other the “evil villain”.
I think a better thread title would be “pro-life is a stupid expression”, because the differentiation you are making between “choice” and “abortion-rights” seems trivial to me. It seems rather evident that the word “choice” in that expression means the choice as to whether or not to have an abortion. This isn’t sophistry or semantics, it’s a very real point that those who coined the phrase were trying to make. That point, as you already spelled out very well in your first post, is that those who take this position are not “for” abortions, but rather are in favor of allowing individuals, and not the government, to decide. The issue really is about choice, and therefore that word is apt to describe the issue. Either “abortion-rights” or “choice” would suffice, but the latter is succinct and rolls off the tongue more easily, so why not use it?
I am perfectly fine with the term “reproductive-freedom zealot”, myself
Seriously, while the phrase itself might be improved upon, the emphasis should indeed be on the freedom to make one’s own reproductive decisions, availing oneself of abortion if & where necessary, likewise with birth control, likewise also (since it’s not just a freedom to say “no”) availing oneself of fertility treatments & techniques if & where necessary. Choosing to reproduce outside of marriage if one wishes. Making lifestyle and career decisions that forego ever reproducing. And so on and so on and so on.
If you want an “anti” version it would be “anti-interference”. Anti-regulation.
Then why not extend that same courtesy to the pro-life camp? They coined that phrase to mean protection of life in general, barring certain rare and unusual circumstances (e.g. abortion to save a mother’s life, and for some, capital punishment). In fact, they believe that life should be protected in the vast majority of circumstances. I daresay that even pro-choicers can come up with a longer list of situations wherein “choice” is not necessarily a good thing.
They don’t deserve that courtesy because the “pro-life” movement, as a whole, shows little concern for the lives or welfare of anyone except fetuses. They tend to be the sort who don’t care if a baby gets hurt or sick or killed ten minutes after it is born, as long as they get that baby born. They have no interest in the mother’s life or health as well, and sometimes outright gloat over the thought of a woman they’ve denied abortion dying of the pregnancy, childbirth or a bad abortion; “every woman who dies is a victory for morality”. They don’t care if a woman dies because Third World hospitals that depend on Amercan aid close their doors to pregnant women, because if she loses the baby we’ll scream “abortion !” and cut them off. They produce people who murder doctors, gloat over it, and hide them from the police.
In short, they are as a whole utter bastards, and I see no reason to give them any courtesy whatsoever. “Anti-choice” is a mild term for them.
I take it, then, they’re against the death penalty and in favour of seatbelt and helmet laws and socialized medicine and vaccinations and such, all as part of a “life in general” policy.
This pro-choicer would be happy for you to supply some examples, because nothing useful comes to mind.
I live in a state that has allowed those damned pro-life automobile tags. No, there is no corresponding pro-choice tag. Sure, we could get ourselves together and get one I suppose. I tend to look at cars with those tags with a more careful eye. Did they just cut me off and endanger my life? Are they driving a fuel efficient car? Are they checking their blind spots? Are they living what they say? Are they speeding or driving recklessly? Are they really pro-life? Not just in word, but in deed?
No, they don’t give a crap what happens to the mother or the child. They just want to crawl in my uterus and tell me what to do with it.
I’m all for a law that states that anyone that protests outside of abortion clinics must first adopt a child or two. Or be required to fund a child in the state system.
As far as the verbage, I think the term pro-life has morphed into, does a fine job of describing them. Not the words themselves, but the meanings behind those words from my point of view.
I think a more accurate phrase would not be able to be printed in most newspapers or said on broadcast television.
I think I would have agreed with you, but Valteron already made the excellent point that the goal of each of the two camps are not mirror images of each other. The goal of the “pro-life” camp is (barring certain exceptions that various members may or may not allow for depending on how radical their beliefs are) for nobody to ever have an abortion. If the goal of the pro-choice camp were the opposite it would be for everyone to have an abortion (or as many as possible), which obviously is not the case. The diametrically opposed position to believing abortions are undesirable is to believe that they are desirable. But few have ever argued that they are desirable, only that a woman should be allowed the choice. So while the term “pro-life” is masking the true goal, which is to ban abortion, I don’t see that the term “pro-choice” is really masking a pro-abortion stance, since “pro-abortion” is really a strawman position.
Not that I blame the pro-life movement for adopting that moniker. It’s actually a clever bit of P.R. on their part. If it were me I would have done it too.
Of course, it’s hard to debate because it really boils down to whether you accept one side’s premise that an abortion is the taking of a life. If you make that assumption, then you can argue that being for legal abortions is being anti-life, but if you don’t, then that argument doesn’t hold.
I think both sides have a legitimate claim on their name. Neither side is using any torturous reasoning to defend how their name applies to their position. As Shodan points out both sides have principles that most people would generally agree with and it’s reasonable for them to name their movements after these principles. The unfortunate conflict arises when the generally favored principles clash in particular circumstances where both principles can’t be followed and one must be given priority - that’s when we get divided into people who favor choice-over-life or life-over-choice.
I agree, both terms are stupid and hypocritical. As if people who are not “pro-life” are somehow against life in general and people who are not “pro-choice” are somehow against choice in general.
More accurate terms (though too long): pro-freedom-of-choice-for-abortions and against-freedom-of-choice-for-abortions.
Unfortunately, “pro-life” and “pro-choice” have become easy shorthands for the two sides’ positions, and it seems like we’re stuck with them.
This thread should have ended with Daniel’s post (#10), in my opinion. Then again, these “pro-abortion”/“anti-choice” debates drive me crazy – their only useful purpose is to highlight those who do not grok semantics.
Did you miss the part where I said, “barring certain rare and unusual circumstances”? Application of the death penalty is a rare occurrance.
As for seatbelt and helmet laws, I don’t know many pro-lifers who oppose those. The whole “socialized medicine” canard is a red herring, as pro-lifers who oppose it would typically do so on the grounds that privatization is more efficient and more likely to produce quality results. You may dispute that if you wish, but the point remains that their opposition of socialized medicine would not be motivated by a disregard for human life.
Irrelevant. You said that “choice” means “the choice as to whether or not to have an abortion.” By the same token, “life” in the term"pro-life" means life in the majority of situations. It does allow for exceptions to the rule, just as the term “pro-choice” meant to encompass all choices. Why should pro-choicers get the benefit of magnamity while holding pro-lifers to a narrower and more stringent standard?
You said, “This isn’t sophistry or semantics, it’s a very real point that those who coined the phrase were trying to make.” Pro-lifers use their term to make a very real point as well, yet they apparently get grief for doing so. Heck, I’d argue that the use of their term is more accurate; after all, exceptions to the pro-life rule are rare, whereas pro-choicers are only defending one particular choice.
