The Misnomer of "Pro-Life"

As a writer I believe both in the power of and the responsibility of word choices. I understand how emotions can be manipulated with a well turned phrase, and nowhere is that abuse more egregious than in the term "pro-life."

I have no problem with you if you disagree with abortions. If it's a matter of morality for you, then I believe you should definitely be free to live your life by your own moral barometer.

I know many people who feel this way and I respect their feelings on the matter. I don't take the matter of abortion lightly, and I would argue that most women, whether pro-choice or not, feel likewise.

To suggest otherwise sets us up in these enemy camps where we're kept apart mostly by the simple misuse of words.

The term "pro-life" is a bit like "family values." It's fairly vague and in that ambiguity there is a lot of room for contradiction that basically tears your own argument asunder, making your own point impossible to logically win.

"Pro-life" indicates a moral superiority that can and should go beyond fighting for a fetus, yet so many times it doesn't.

For instance many of those that vehemently claim to be "pro-life" also believe in things like guns, war and capital punishment. A select few also decide that it's okay to gun down abortion providers, bomb clinics and terrorize women who are already facing some difficult decisions. Yet they feel this behavior is completely justified. That means it's okay for someone to live as long as *you* approve of the way they do it. Everything else is up for grabs, and everyone else is just collateral damage.

Unfortunately this is not just limited to adults who commit crimes or do something you think might be wrong. These are also the sort who will post on the Internet that a nine-year-old ruthlessly gunned down and murdered in cold blood was actually a *good thing* because she might grow up to be a Liberal.

That means - technically - you are "conditionally" pro-life, which isn't quite as noble as its name might suggest. This makes the virtue of the "pro-life" concept equally as conditional. This shuts down the debate based on logic alone.

Worse are those who clamor to save the children yet often are the ones who support politicians and policies that seek to de-fund public education, programs that provide food, aid and health care to at-risk kids who made the unfortunate mistake of being born to parents who can't afford to care for them. That means, again, "pro-life" deceptively leaves out the *quality* of the life for which you are fighting.

In other words, forcing someone to live by your choices only to ditch them when it's time to pay the bill doesn't make you as righteous as you'd like to believe. Whereas Jesus never said one word about abortion, he did make it clear that whatever you do for the least of us you do for him.

(He also made the point that if you deny those unfortunate souls you likewise deny Christ. Think about that next time you protest an abortion then turn around and gripe about how your taxes are going to pay for those actual children who result.)

The more appropriate term is anti-choice, but that doesn't quite have the same noble, righteous ring to it. First, it gives away the true nature of the agenda at work - to take away the choices of women who find themselves dealing with an unwanted pregnancy. Secondly, it doesn't sound quite so conservative. Being defined by what you're against means you're a trouble maker. Who wants to align themselves with the unwashed anti-establishment masses?

If, however, we strip away the provocative, manipulative language - we'd find out we're not so far apart as you'd think. There are many pro-choice proponents who are anti-abortion. We're just trying to approach it from another, more pragmatic angle. By the time a woman gets to the abortion clinic, it's too late to intervene. She's already considered what her options are and how feasible each one might be for her own particular circumstances. Consider a woman figures out she's pregnant probably weeks before she can actually have an abortion performed; there is a lot of time to ponder the choices available.

An abortion may seem to an outsider to be a quick way to brush it all under the rug but there's some thought that goes into it, believe me. Once a woman finds out she's pregnant, often she can't think of anything else. This is particularly true if her circumstances aren't good at the time.

Where the thought needs to occur is BEFORE the pregnancy to help reduce the instances of abortion. About half of all abortions in the world are performed illegally, which poses health risks to the woman herself. This again goes against that whole "pro-life" thing you currently got going for you.

(The mother's life still counts.)

According to the Guttmacher Institute, simply making abortion illegal does not mean less abortions are performed, rather the reverse tends to prove true. Countries where abortion is illegal often see the higher abortion rates.

By contrast, the countries with the least instances of abortion per capita tend to be the most liberal in regards to their laws on abortion, contraception availability and sex education.

An ounce of prevention, as they say, is worth a pound of cure.

So why has this very proven method been so ignored by the United States?

Simple. The anti-choice movement is not so much anti-choice as it is anti-woman.

I know I lost some of you with that one, but hear me out.

When women are given the opportunity to choose for themselves how to manage their own sexuality, it defies all those patriarchal family values that cling to the idea that a man is needed to properly manage the life of women and children. This is why someone like Natalie Portman can be challenged by leaders on the right for her choice to become a parent, even though by any definition of success she has managed to adequately prepare her life for a new baby... EXCEPT for the part where she hasn't yet married.

Conversely someone like Bristol Palin can be lifted on the shoulders of the "pro-life" movement that shows that a teenager who happened to get pregnant out of wedlock can "make the right choice" to have her baby anyway - even though she hadn't finished school (Portman has a degree from Harvard,) Bristol didn't have a job (aside from taking breaks to earn an education Portman has been working since she was Bristol's age by the time she got pregnant.)

Not to mention that Natalie Portman also nearly 30 years old AND engaged... yet she can earn the ire of the Right Wing while Bristol gets a free pass.

Once more this unravels your pro-life, conservative family values argument all to pieces before you even bring it to the table.

One of the easiest challenges to this hypocritical about-face would be the fact that Portman is in fact Jewish and part of the entertainment industry, which is notoriously liberal. That's a double whammy against the right wing Religious Right.

Again this proves that the argument is basically Pro-Conditional-Life, which seeks to criminalize those who have different morals and standards.

The idea that a woman can decide for herself when to become sexually active as well as when to become a parent in essence gives her total autonomy over something that men fear losing control over. The problem is, like any oppressive majority control, that concept of control is merely an illusion. Eventually those you are oppressing will discover they have a say over those things you have subtly (and not so subtly) suggested that we aren't smart enough or strong enough to claim as our own.

A woman's sexuality and subsequent possible physical condition of pregnancy is her world alone to navigate. You can partner with her in it, but ultimately - her body, her control.

This is the core of this problem.

If men could get pregnant abortion wouldn't even raise an eyebrow. I think it was Roseanne who said, "If men could get pregnant, not only would abortion be legal it'd be available in a drive thru with chicken wings and beer."

But because men cannot either experience or control pregnancy, instead they use what control they have by whatever means possible - in this case both legal and economical. Forcing pregnancy onto women who cannot afford to have a child in effect keeps her poor and easy to control for the foreseeable future, as well as her children, who likewise fall into the same destructive patterns thanks to their impoverished conditions. Poverty is a cycle, my friends. That is why it is so necessary for those who benefit so much from their control over the less fortunate to fight against laws that would allow a woman to believe that she *might* be able to make these hard choices for herself. Putting off motherhood until she was more financially prepared for it essentially gives her the key to break the cycle of poverty and step free of the shackles that come with it.

This is why the anti-choice movement is often coupled with preventing the two things that have PROVEN to prevent the need for abortion - comprehensive sex education and easy, affordable access to birth control.

Certain anti-choice groups aren't going to be satisfied with making abortion illegal, because they see BIRTH CONTROL as a method of abortion.

If you think the attack on establishments like Planned Parenthood are simply over abortion, you're not looking at the much bigger picture. Planned Parenthood provides low-cost birth control to young women with limited resources - i.e. women at risk for unwanted pregnancy. This essentially takes away the proven tools necessary (easy access birth control, comprehensive sex education) to prevent the need for an abortion in the first place.

By defunding and attacking such an organization means more women are at risk to actually get pregnant and likewise seek abortions - like many other countries the world over where abortion rates are much higher despite their illegal status. The same oppressive principle is at work.

This is why the term "anti-choice" is far more apt than "pro-life." You're not saving lives by taking these choices away. (And... by attacking Planned Parenthood you also attack other life-saving programs for impoverished women, like cancer screenings that could - y'know - actually SAVE A LIFE.)

Abortion is a necessary evil which has existed long before some legal ruling in 1973. Whether legal or not it will exist as long as women can get pregnant when their circumstances are far less than ideal.

Instead of fighting each other over semantics, how about we come together and find solutions that will help us get to a place where abortion is less needed and desired, rather than less legal? Only one of these approaches has proven to work - and it's not yours.

Stop forcing your religious morality onto strangers and perhaps you won't have to worry about eventually having some of your money going either to pay for abortion OR to take care of the children once they get here (which is far more likely.)

In other words, stop robbing the choices of others because in your mind you've decided all your choices are "the right ones."

More likely they are the ones on the right - and those two are not mutually inclusive no matter what Fox News would have you believe.

So let's stop letting manipulative, deceptive language separate us from the common goal: to make every child that comes into the world be a child that is wanted by a parent prepared, both emotionally and financially, to care for it.

To me... that is the most noble "pro-life" argument to be made.