Reply #8: hi vets74

[iverglas]

I don't actually get involved in discussions of issues at this site by PM -- do you want to put the content of your PM in a post here?

Basically, you're saying that "pro-choice" as a shorthand term for the position that abortion must be legally available to women at their option, which actually is what it has always meant, alienates some voters.

I'm not persuaded that altering one's vocabulary at regular intervals is a solution to the problem.

If the contrary position is that a majority of abortions are "unnecessary", what can be said to that? A large majority of everything that anyone does is "unnecessary". There's no reply to that statement.

I'm not persuaded that allowing the meaning of the term to be perverted by crap like

"The term ‘choice’ is used by these women to claim the deep seated belief that the decision is theirs alone... (but)... they tell us that most women in crisis feel that there is really no choice but to abort and 'learn to live with it.'”

accomplishes anything. If abortion is not available, a woman has "no choice" but to continue a pregnancy she does not want and have a child she does not want -- except that she has the "choice" of an unsafe illegal abortion; why not say that?

The "choice" in "pro-choice" is the power and right and liberty to choose.

I've addressed the equivocation pratised in this regard many times in the past.

choice
n.
1. The act of choosing; selection.
2. The power, right, or liberty to choose; option.
3. One that is chosen.
4. A number or variety from which to choose: a wide choice of styles and colors.
5. The best or most preferable part.
6. Care in choosing.
7. An alternative.

We can't stop the ugly right wing from engaging in these kinds of underhanded word games, but if one changes course every time they do that, one is left constantly on the defensive and constantly playing catch-up.

The discourse of rights is not an easy one, when the rights holders are members of a group that many people in a society simply do not believe are deserving of equal rights, i.e. are full human beings with equal dignity and worth. Women are such a group.

And oppressed groups whose rights are denied or jeopardized have really never got far by modulating their discourse to reflect the oppressor's framing of issues. Basically, because it can't be done, I'd say. Their goals are inimical to the oppressed group's interests. The oppressed group just plain can't fit its discourse to the oppressor's, because square pegs don't go in round holes.