Via Inkyhack @ Flickr.
I have to get something off my chest or else I’ll pull out the little hair I have remaining. “Pro-choice” and “pro-life” are political terms. That means they are labels used to describe one’s position on abortion as a legal/political issue. If one supports the legal right to abortion, she is pro-choice. If one opposes legal abortion, she is pro-life.
Increasingly, online and off, I have noticed that a lot of women qualify their pro-choice political leanings with disclaimers such as, “I’d never have an abortion, but…”
I find this “trend” troubling, because I fear the pro-life camp is winning some sort of ideological war, even if people are not necessarily voting against abortion rights.
The pro-life movement has snuck its rhetoric into women’s brains, convincing them that – at the very least – abortion is a bad thing bad women do, and that “pro-choicers” promote forced abortion. So it’s become common for women to announce that they don’t personally approve of abortion before sheepishly admitting to being “pro-choice for other women.” Your own personal reproductive choices are moot. The “for other women” is understood when it comes to being pro-choice.
Declaring support for legal abortion rights is not a reflection of your hatred for your own hypothetical fetus. That means the statement, “I’m personally pro-life but I think abortion should be legal” makes no sense. If you think abortion should be legal you are pro-choice, full stop. That you couldn’t bear to slaughter an innocent baby yourself is irrelevant.
Say it loud. Say it proud. I AM PRO-CHOICE.
I’m sorry, I am still having a trigger response to SOALG’s April Fool’s day announcement. Every once in a while it snaps in my head and I have to remind myself she didn’t mean it.
Pro choice means no jail or fines or firebombs for doctors and women providing and seeking abortion, means no forced births and no forced abortions, means poor women and rich women should have equal access to healthy, chosen pregnancies and safe abortions, means children should be loved, welcomed and cared for, and we do not create a false hierarchy of needs which places women’s health and well being at the bottom.
It’s like the least controversial position I can think of.
Thanks for being the best kind of broken record there is harpies.
That you couldn’t bear to slaughter an innocent baby yourself is irrelevant.
I am admiring your writing more and more Sarah. My first thought was that including this phrase was wrong tactically but with a little reflection I realize this is just the right note to strike.
The other thing I hate: “Why can’t pro-choice people admit that pro-life people have a point, that abortion is terrible?”
BECAUSE PRO-LIFE PEOPLE DO NOT HAVE A POINT.
I have to relate the anecdote that in an argument on this point a person informed me (literally!) that she would be leaving the discussion to spend her evening in “more urbane” company.
P.S. SarahMC, you know I love you and your pithy sense-making. If only I were able to achieve so much in so few words.
urbane? totally. being pro choice is so provincial.
JD, this was one of these women who are “pro-choice” but find “pro-choicers sanctimonious and also make too many baby jokes” and therefore think pro-lifers totally have a point.
I hear you. I think part of the trouble is that those who have never had an abortion have bought the lie that it is ALWAYS a traumatic event, that will haunt the woman for the rest of her life – and that is partly why they can’t see themselves ever doing it. Which is why I take every opportunity to say I have had THREE abortions, and lived to regret NONE of them, not even for a minute. Ever. Truly. Every time I say it, I hope it helps remove the stigma and blow the stereotype just a teeny-tiny bit.
Conversely, it makes me shudder to think what my life would be like now had I not had the access to legal abortion – I would not have gone to college, moved to London, had the career I wanted, met the the man I’m spending my life with (13 years and counting), moved to New York, start a new – dream – career, etc. All the travel, life experiences, people I would have missed out on crowd into my head, and set it spinning.
Am I pro-choice? Hell, yeah.
Here’s where this logic works: “I’m not gay, but I’m in favor of gay marriage.” But it doesn’t quite transfer over into the abortion debate realm. Can I just say that pro-choice does not mean anti-life? That’s another thing that is a sticking point for me. The “I’m personally pro-life” stance implies that I (and many other people) are against life.
Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you.
All this, AND the fact that “pro-choice” and “pro-life,” as phrases, are not diametrically opposed.
This is why I loved that abortion tumblr from a few months back: it gave me heart (as someone who has never had an abortion, but fuck yeah, I would if I needed to) to see that someone could go through the process of an abortion clear-headed and with a sense of humor, and not doing the hand-wringing, cursing-the-gods act that we’re “supposed” to do.
This comment doesn’t make sense, I think, but you know.
When I taught public speaking and would do my little spiel about “words mean things,” I always used “pro-life” and “pro-choice” to discuss denotation and connotation. And tried to (subtly?) point out that no one is anti-life, because I am a librul brainwasher.
Thanks, rodriguez!
Diziet_Sma, I’ve never had an abortion but I get it!
I am someone who has never had an abortion and never plans to, and honestly I understand on a very deep level those who consider abortion murder, but I find it really difficult to say “I would never have an abortion.” I have NO IDEA what life is going to throw at my uterus. what if my pregnancy threatens my life? What if I find out the baby has some horrible disease? what if I become pregnant through rape? If I am honest with myself I have no idea what I would do in each situation. Even when I was raped I told myself I wouldn’t abort if I was pregnant, but if that test had turned up positive, who knows what I would feel? It’s the great unknown of womens lives that requires a degree of moral humility I think.
sarah. – I think where that would translate is “I can’t get pregnant, but I am pro-choice.”
a degree of moral humility That’s it right there.
I would always think in the same way that Sarah complains about until I had my daughter. Then I knew I would definitely take her for an abortion for any reason at all, and still would, given she’s 16.
Sadly, I didn’t overcome my brain-washing thru reflection, only thru experience. Other women who make this argument similarly won’t or can’t respond to logic, so it’s a serious uphill battle.
rodriguez it is so interesting that having a child made you MORE pro choice. that’s a very poignant story.
I’m not sure I understand, Mireille…
right on SarahMC. I hate that! First of all, because like JD says, how can you be so damn sure? and (2) it’s like women feel the need to almost apologize for taking the pro-choice position. Unfortuneately, I hate to say it but I think anti abortion factions are winning the ideological war. Maybe I’m just being pessimistic and I don’t have concrete data or anything, it’s just a general feeling I have.
@sarahofalesser: I totally agree, I hate the term “pro-life” I seriously will never use it. I’m pro legal abortion and certainly not “anti-life” so why do they get to stake out the position of pro-life? another way I think they’re winning the war of words.
@bluebears I guess it is academic at this point, since the ‘pro-choice/pro-life’ tags seem to have become the accepted form, but I really really wish we could just call it what it is: pro-abortion/anti-abortion. This goes to the root of SarahMC’s point, I think: We have been screwed over on this because some women are unwilling to call themselves pro-abortion. It’s ridic.
Diziet_Sma, I agree, and have argued before that “pro-abortion” and “anti-abortion” SHOULD be widely used; they are clearer and more accurate.
But if even pro-choice women are unwilling to say, without qualifications, she supports “choice,” there’s no way in hell she’d ever let the label “pro-abortion” pass her lips. I’ll do it though: I’m pro-abortion.
@SarahMC: Totally. And can I just say to any ladies who are pro-choice, but wouldn’t want to say they are pro-abortion – arrggghhhhhhhh!
Ahem. And yes, allow me to join you: I’m pro-abortion.
I’ve started thinking about choice entirely in a legal/rights framework. No one has the right to use your kidneys, blood supply, etc without your consent–therefore no embryo/fetus has the right to your womb without your ongoing consent. People’s personal feelings about babies and fetal life and souls or whatever are irrelevant in this context.
me too. Pro-Abortion. The phrase “pro-choice” is just an extra layer of obfuscation.
But it’s a lost cause to expect the other side to give up the “pro-life” obfuscation tag. It’ way too powerful and useful.
@rodriguez: Yeah, I know. Maybe WE should just stop using the pro-life phrase altogether, and always refer to them as anti-abortion? You know, any time anyone in our life or on the internet uses the phrase ‘pro-life’, we interject with ‘you mean anti-abortion?’… now I think of it, I’m gonna start doing that, actually.
yeah Spark a lot of people justify pro choice position not on privacy but on the fact that there is no “good samaritan” clause in the law — you don’t HAVE to keep someone else alive. certainly not by shutting down your own immune system and giving them space to live INSIDE YOUR UTERUS.
Diziet — we call them anti’s for short.
I try to use “anti-choice.”
I feel like if the court can’t compel a dude to give blood, it can’t compel me to give birth. (Well, it can, but it shouldn’t.) I also think the conversation about choice should expand to cover the whole reproductive rights spectrum–like if the state can force you to give birth, it can also force you to, say, have a C-section when you don’t want one, or force you to be sterilized (the US has a nasty history of this).
@diziet_SmaThat’s exactly the right thing to do.
Before I got pregnant, I couldn’t imagine any circumstances in which I, a fairly wealthy sheltered child of a loving, supportive family, would have an abortion. I think that’s what it is, for lots of these women, a failure of imagination. They can’t imagine being too poor to feed a baby, or having three kids who already take all their time and energy, or having a choice between pregnancy and college.
Once I got pregnant, it became much easier for me to imagine all the things that could go wrong that would, for me, have ended with a termination. I could imagine ending a pregnancy more easily than I could imagine carrying a pregnancy that would have terribly difficult results. I could imagine terminating a pregnancy that would endanger my life, especially now that I have a living kid who depends on me.
Also, I think pregnancy sucked beyond words. That made me way more passionately and personally pro-choice.
EXACTLY Spark — I mean pro choicers are all ready on board with this, it’s why we use the term “Reproductive Justice.” But antis don’t want to recognize the work we do to support pregnant women who want to keep their babies, against forced sterilaztion, etc. because it doesn’t fit their narrative of us as hateful eugenicists.
@Avgadro: Well said! And by ‘pro-choice’ you mean pro-abortion, right?
JD, I’ve learned a lot from the National Advocates for Pregnant Women. What an awesome organization. They involve both pro-choice and anti-choice women, because in so many ways our interests overlap. From their website:
“Although it is generally accepted that adults can decide what medical treatment they will or will not have – once a woman becomes pregnant others may be able to make that decision for her. Angela Carder was forced, against her will, to undergo surgery because it was believed it would help her fetus; in fact, it failed to save the fetus and contributed to her death. Pregnant women may be punished for informed refusal of HIV treatment and are often denied recommended forms of drug treatment. And, while many states now permit adults to determine whether and what treatment they will accept if they become critically ill or incompetent, some states exclude pregnant women from this right of self-determination.”
I AM PRO-CHOICE- no matter what your choice is. You don’t HAVE to choose abortion, but you have the legal right to if you want to. That’s what anti-choicers don’t understand. No one says you personally have to have one if you’re young, unwed, whatever, but you can CHOOSE that option if you feel it’s the best thing for you.
GAH! Don’t have an abortion if you think it’s morally wrong, but leave my uterus out of it!
@CrabbyAlissa: And by that, you mean you are pro-abortion, right? Because being pro-abortion does not mean you HAVE to have one, or that anyone else has to have one.
Dziet_Sma, I get that you like the term pro-abortion, but I have to say that it really rubs me the wrong way. I’m not pro-abortion, because to me that sounds like I encourage abortions. I’d like to see the number of abortions in this country go down- along with the number of unplanned pregnancies, and a corresponding increase in comprehensive sex ed and contraceptive use.
I’m pro-choice. I’m for women always having the option of an abortion- and also having a full range of contraceptive choices available to them, so that hopefully they won’t have to make the choice about an abortion in the first place.
@CollegeBookworm: I really like you a lot and I don’t think we have ever disagreed on anything, either here or on Jez, but I have only one thing to say: Arggghhhhhhhh!
We will have to agree to disagree. I’ve stated all my reasons and I don’t want to get into it again, because it will be a pointless exercise.
An abortion is a medical procedure and should be no more or less morally freighted than any other procedure. “Hey, there is something foreign and unwanted in my body: plz to remove it. Kthxbai.” Really. It can be that simple.
@PhDork: I agree! I agree! But millions don’t.
I call them anti-choice because I recognize that both labels are tools of ideology, and because, for people who want to take away my fundamental right to health and bodily autonomy, just calling them anti choice is pretty mild. Also, it’s true. They do want to eliminate a choice.
If I am forced to carry a child to term, just so I can send another brown baby into the foster care system, I have a good chance of developing diabetes, like many of the women in my family. My mother will have it for the rest of her life.
If they want to call me pro-abortion, that’s fine too. I am pro-abortion, in that I believe we need to have both de juro and de facto reproductive freedom before we can become full and equal citizens and abortion is part of that. Also because their position is not the only moral one, and I refuse to go the Obamaite route and cede them that ground. I find the anti-choice position deeply callous and immoral.
@CollegeBookworm: Do you think more sex ed and greater contraceptive access would eliminate the need for abortion? Is it always the less bad of two bad choices?
@Diziet_Sma: Like bluebears said, I’m pro-legal abortion. This issue I have with using pro-abortion as opposed to pro-choice is that I think it gives the anti-choicers another way to spin something negatively. “OMG- pro-abortionists want you to have abortions! They’ll teach our kids to have sex and abortions and rabble rabble rabble!” That certainly isn’t what is meant or, in my opinion, even implied, but they’ll hardly care about that and it’s just another thing they’ll use to rally their base.
As it stands, I will not call myself “pro-abortion” among people who are not die hard feminists or at least well-versed in reproductive issues. Not because I’m not pro-abortion (in that I support the legality of the procedure and have no moral qualms with it), but because folks who can’t grasp the meaning of “pro-choice” are not going to understand what it means to be pro-abortion.
Among mixed company, I will proudly call myself pro-choice, because I think it’s important to keep the focus on the availability of the LEGAL CHOICE to abortion. The vast majority of people out there would be completely baffled by “pro-abortion” and I think it would be futile to try putting a positive spin on that phrase in the public mind. We’re not there yet, and we have a number of steps to climb before we get there.
CrabbyAlissa: The idea of anti-choicers muttering like the Hamburglar makes me giggle uncontrollably. (Could it be the rum and coke?)
Great post!
PRO-CHOICER here, too. I’ve never had an abortion, but I believe that I would, if I found myself pregnant under circumstances that weren’t right for me. I’ve also never had a broken limb, but I’m pretty sure I’d seek medical treatment for that, too. I’ve lost my own point there, sorry.
Anyway. Mark Thomas (English political stand up comedian and activist) put it very well when he said that anti-abortionists disprove their own point every time they open their mouths.
Pro-life as a term is calculated misdirection. I happen to value my life surprisingly highly, it’s gratifying to know that there’s swathes of people who don’t.
Sorry, head’s away off on its own today…
Okay, I’m a little late to the conversation but I feel I need to state my peace with two things.
1. If you want to call yourself pro-abortion, go ahead, but please don’t tey to force the rest of us to. We have our reasons of calling ourselves pro-choice (which I won’t go into because they were explained very clearly above).
2. Can we please stop talking about giving a baby up for adoption as if it is the worst thing in the world? I agree that abortion isn’t a worse choice than adoption, and no one should be forced into keeping a baby just because giving it up for adoption is an option. This decision is really up to the woman to decide what is best, because only she knows her situation well enough to decide what is best. With that said, I will repeat myself, can we please stop talking about adoption as if it is the worst thing in the world? As someone who has given up a brown baby, I feel like I have to hide that from both the pro-lifers who can’t believe that I would willingly give up a child; and I have to hide from the pro-choicers who act like giving up a child for adoption will destroy the child’s life every time. Like I said, I understand what you are getting at, but please keep your arguement to *women are capable of making decisions that are the best for them better than strangers are* and leave the *adoption is horrible* argument out of it. Or at least be careful with your choice of words when talking about giving up children for adoption.
Thank you.