General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Abortion has never been rare. Why is that an expectation now? [View all]hughee99
(16,113 posts)one member of a list is conditional on another. If you read "safe, legal and rare" as a list of conditions for supporting abortion, I completely understand what your saying. I even understand that the fact that it COULD be read this way is damaging to the pro-choice argument. My point is that people seem to be arguing with people who aren't reading it this way, as if they were. When asked to clarify their position, I haven't seen anyone (in these DU discussions) argue that access to abortion should be restricted to make it so that it is rare.
Some people have taken to attacking those who use the term "rare" to characterize them as not being "on board" with women's rights or health issues (and I'm not accusing you of doing this, as discussions on this topic seem to go, ours seems to be very civil). I think perhaps a better tactic might be to suggest that based on one's definition, rare MIGHT seem okay, but it's use hurts the overall cause, because it isn't clear enough what people are fighting for. When fighting for women's issues, ones platform/slogan SHOULD be clear and unambiguous and to that end the use of "rare" hurts far more than it provides any value. I suspect that's why the democrats dropped it's usage in 2008.