bstempleton@watmath.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (09/17/84)
One think that has always irked me is the constant misuse of the phrase "pro-choice" pertaining to abortion. I have seen many people claim to be pro-choice on the abortion issue, and come out anti-choice on other issues like pornography and public funding of abortion. I have often seen people who call themselves pro-choice feminists come out in favour of the censorship of pornography! This astounds me. Abortion is something the anti-abortionist finds disgusting and morally evil. These days many feminists in the news say the same thing about X-rated films. Surely "It's my body and I can do what I want with it!" implies "It's my mind and I can do what I want with it!" Likewise on funding. How can you claim to be pro-choice, and at the same time insist that those anti-abortionists be forced on pain of prison to pay for abortions! Where's the advocacy of choice in that? Now I'm all for individual choice on the abortion issue, and you can see a small number of the reasons in my previous postings to net.abortion. I also don't find anything wrong in us pro-abortionists banding together to help pay for abortions for the poor if we want to. But really folks, only use the term pro-choice if you really mean it. Of course, the super-loaded "pro-life" isn't used very well either. -- Brad Templeton - Waterloo, Ont. (519) 886-7304
sam@phs.UUCP (Sherry Marts) (09/18/84)
-------------- I am pro-choice on the abortion issue. I AM NOT PRO-ABORTION!!! The two words are NOT synonymous. I believe that ay decision concerning whtether or not to carry a pregnancy to term should be left up to the woman, in consultation with a health-care provider and anyone else with whom she might choose to discuss it. I would fight any effort to force a woman to abort a pregnancy as strongly as I'm now fighting efforts to limit a woman's right to a safe and affordably abortion on demand. Unlike Brad, I find the term "pro-choice" adequate to describe my position on the abortion issue. Any ambiguity of meaning is usually cleared up by the context in which it appears. In general contemporary usage, "pro-choice" specifically means "pro-choice on the abortion issue" - think of it as an abbreviation, if that will help, Brad. And if you really are pro-abortion, call yourself that. Most pro-choice folks aren't, any more than the -nti.abortion crowd is truly "pro-life".
gail@calmasd.UUCP (Gail B. Hanrahan) (09/22/84)
>Likewise on funding. How can you claim to be pro-choice, and at the >same time insist that those anti-abortionists be forced on pain of prison >to pay for abortions! Where's the advocacy of choice in that? > Brad Templeton Some of those same anti-abortionists are "forcing" me to pay for MX missiles and weaponry that *I* don't want. :) This whole "I don't want my tax money to go for xyz" thing is fallacious. It's just as easy to think of your tax money as paying for something you do support. (But not as interesting rhetorically.) Gail Bayley Hanrahan {decvax,ucbvax}!sdcsvax!calmasd!gail Calma Company, San Diego
brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (10/06/84)
It's nice to think that pro-choice implies only "pro-choice when it comes to abortion", but I have trouble swallowing it. The reason is that many pro-choice-abortion advocates defend their position by saying they are defenders of individual freedom. I certainly make that claim. The problem is that many who make it *aren't* defenders of individual freedom as a principle, they are defenders of freedom in one particular issue. As you have pointed out, anti-abortionists call themselves "pro-life", and this doesn't mean that we in the other camp are pro-death. Similarly the fact that they are anti-choice doesn't imply that the other camp is pro-choice. I have never said that pro-choice == pro-abortion. If you've read any of my ardent defences of the legality of abortion, you would know that. Now if you want to be pro-choice-abortion, please be so, but I ask you to think about the philosophy of individual freedom and how much you really support it. Forcing people to pay for abortions and banning books are moral issues, too, and they no more belong in the law than abortion rules. -- Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473