Pro-choice or Pro-life?

[TJ in Oregon]

The terminology issue is an interesting one.

In a perfect world, we would have developed neutral sounding descriptors on both sides like "pro/anti fetal personhood" or "pro/anti legal elective first trimester abortion" but alas people don't work that way. As things currently stand, we've developed two highly editorialized terms to describe the debate. Who among us wants to be "anti-life" or "anti-choice"? I'm fine with this. The terms widely known and reasonably equal, so I see no reason to try to force a change. Alcibiades argument is interesting though I'm not quite convinced for the reasons Kingpoleon outlined.

What I really don't have time for though, is the disingenuous posters who, despite participating in an ostensibly high info forum, throw out everything they ever knew about commonly held meanings of words, to say things like "If you're pro-life how can you support the death penalty/oppose single payer healthcare etc"*, acting like the world's worst, most woodenly literal translators in the process.

Every pro-lifer supports something that doesn't promote maximum life, just as every pro-choicer some restriction on personal choice. Let's not pretend like this is some unique insight to pretend that words can't have meanings other than the most bare literal one.

*The pro-life version would be something about seatbelt laws I suppose, but I used pro-choice as that is by far the most common one I encounter on USGD.

I think this debate is rather odd in that the “conservative” side is charging the media with implicit bias, rather than purposeful bias. The claim that pro choice is the most accurate term is an implicit acceptance of the pro choice argument*.

*I generally use the term pro choice in the presumption of good faith. Name calling is not conducive to reasonable discussion, and a fair agreement upon terms must be the basis of any discussion which begins in disagreement.

I think "pro-life" and "pro-choice" are fair in that they are equally bad terms. Both are designed to maximize appeal rather than to describe their position accurately. I accept that "anti-abortion" is a more accurate description than "pro-life" and I would generally accept it -- however, it is not fair to use "anti-abortion" alongside of "pro-choice" as the latter is vaguely appeal-maximizing. But the "pro-choice" side often objects to "pro-abortion". So the easiest fair thing to do is to just keep "pro-life" and "pro-choice".