One word at a time

I recently was having a conversation with a friend, about what I no longer remember, when I said the term "pro-life" and he absently inserted "anti-choice". I paused, looking at him oddly, and the conversation deterred into the titles society uses to describe these often warring factions.

I have labeled myself pro-choice for as long as I can remember. Whenever the conversation comes up amongst friends, or enemies, my standard statement has been "I don't know what decision I would make for myself as I have never been in the position to think of abortion in a personal sense, but I would never want anyone else to make the decision for me or anyone else (especially a roomful of old, white men!)".

I have also found that for some reason some* of those who find themselves on the "pro-life" side of the fence seem to think that since I am not with them I must be against them, and that means I am anti-life. Where does that assumption come from? It fills the literature and scare tactics of the more violent sects of pro-life fighters. There is a mentality that since the language used to mark sides includes "Pro" the opposite camp must be "Anti" (and the other side must be composed of all that is evil and corrupt but that is another rant all together).

I am not anti-life. And I do not like the assumption that because I believe in a woman's right to choose that I am somehow the secret heir of Hitler. So I'm taking the friend's advice and changing the world one word at a time. I am now going to try and use Anti-Choice instead of Pro-Life, and if you agree with me, maybe you can too. And if you don't, well then we can always sit down over coffee and discuss that too some day.

On a side note - though it is the reason this post was prompted out of my brain and into my computer - I recently was told that I might enjoy the writings of Nicholas Kristof from the NYTimes. So I went to check him out and this was the first article I read. I'll have to read more, but I do like it so far.




*I could link here to some crazy anti-choice website that shows disturbing gut wrenching images but you've all seen them (and if you haven't just drive through any small Midwestern farming area like mid north Wisconsin or anywhere outside of Indianapolis, IN) and I refuse to drive up web statistics for them.