Pro-choice or Pro-life?

[DC Al Fine]

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.