File this in the category of under the radar and it’s about time.
I’ve been saying for, well, forever, that the so called “pro-life” contingent is only pro-selective life. Many of these same people are against stem cell research, for the death penalty, but also in favor of putting a woman second and a slave to her own body, while some want her not to have control over it.
The graphic below appeared in Newsweek online and was utilized by a young, right-wing group online whose sole purpose is dedicated to stripping women of their right to self-determination. Michelle Malkin trumpeted them recently when she covered NPR’s shift in abortion language.
I’m not aware of any young and aggressive progressive group fighting to maintain women’s rights.
But finally, after decades of having won our freedoms, a move by some in the media to neutral and more even rhetorical ground.
Last week, NPR replaced the wrongly applied “pro-life,” with the term “abortion rights opponents.” Via NPR:
“NPR News is revising the terms we use to describe people and groups involved in the abortion debate.
This updated policy is aimed at ensuring the words we speak and write are as clear, consistent and neutral as possible. This is important given that written text is such an integral part of our work.
On the air, we should use “abortion rights supporter(s)/advocate(s)” and “abortion rights opponent(s)” or derivations thereof (for example: “advocates of abortion rights”). It is acceptable to use the phrase “anti-abortion”, but do not use the term “pro-abortion rights”. …
This editorial decision gets it exactly correct. A woman considering her own life when making the agonizing decision of getting an abortion is choosing life as much as anyone is. Her own.
Until we get beyond debating that a woman has the fundamental right of freedom over her own body, which should never be denied or debated, let alone served up as a bargaining chip as Democrats did on health care, we’ll never get down to serious prevention. That’s where all sides should engage together. But it can’t happen until everyone realizes that women’s self-determination is not up for grabs or discussion.
Someday someone somewhere will wake up to understand that this will require the repeal of the Hyde Amendment, which was put forth as a reaction to Roe v. Wade, but is out of date and out of line with freedoms already won and court decisions already rendered. Ability to pay should have nothing to do with reproductive freedom.
A woman’s individual liberty comes first. All that’s left to discuss is prevention. That’s where we need to focus.
Abortion is a wedge issue. It always has been and it always will be. It’s also a money maker for both sides. The Hyde Amendment may be repaeled some day, but that won’t happen for at least the next one hundred years. There’s too much money to be made in keeping each side at each others throats. The discussion of prevention, and by that I assume you mean the prevention of abortion, is exactly where this debate should have been all along. As Hillary said “Abortion should be rare…..”. There is no need for a non-pregnant woman to have an abortion. At least that’s what the guy—yes it was a guy—who ‘invented’ the birth control pill once told me. He had 14 kids. His claim was that the early tests didn’t take and his wife continued to become pregnant. He was a Catholic so I was never certain if it was his failed testing or the Church’s influence that produced all of his children. Peace
Prevention is where by PP group has been working for years but it is a tough slog.
My daughter sent me an email from NARAL yesterday fund raising to fight a typical Missouri statehouse outrage on abortion rights.
I sent her back an earful on how the women’s movement was dead and so were it’s supporting institutions and that it had been pissed away by her generation thinking things would stay the same without their involement.They won’t call themselves feminists because they think the men in their lives won’t like it.
I told her they are going to have to start all over again.
This was an email from work so I am waiting to see what her response to me is going to be…
Though we speak daily I try to keep politics to a minimum because it depressses her.Young people have to have hope you can’t be bringing them down all the time but sometimes they need a dose of reality.
You sure are one tough b****. But, I suppose its was about time that you told your daughter to grow a pair. Nothing like a one gender world??? Although worms evolved to that point long ago.
Peace
I know it was tough, Lake Lady, but the feminist conversation you just shared is a big part of the problem.
Like I have mentioned before Imhotep…you really do not know how to express yourself on these issues so just don’t try.You come off sounding immature.
Lake Lady – you gave the same response that I gave to my daughter and granddaughter. I told them they were sleeping while their rights were being taken away. And the same thing Taylor wrote about women being “served up as a bargaining chip as Democrats did on health care.” My question for using women as a bargaining chip – didn’t they have any issue to use other than women? I’m afraid that in the future women’s rights will be used to pass other legislation.
Interestingly, the policy changed was only implemented in 2005. A week or so ago NPR had a story from someone who is no longer at NPR, but expressed she was surprised when the 2005 decision was made, and glad it had now been removed:
“Since 2005, it has been NPR’s policy to use the term pro-choice to identify anyone who advocates on behalf of abortion rights and pro-life for anyone who advocates in opposition to abortion.
“The terms pro-choice and pro-life are in such widespread use these days that they’re just as neutral as their alternatives (abortion rights advocate or abortion rights opponent),” said the 2005 memo authored by three people who are no longer at NPR.”
http://www.npr.org/ombudsman/
LL, I know such conversations aren’t fun, but the “dose of reality” is a widespread need. I have a 30-something year old niece who encourages me, as over the last several years she has learned for herself what “feminist” means, and rejected the inaccurate and silly stereotypes.
My daughter’s response was..”.That’s the most depressing thing I have ever read.Do you think a one woman army would do any good?”
The thing is she is very feminist in her views and has always had a great interest in world wide women’s rights but she has assumed that things won’t change here. She keeps her feminist light under glass many times because she does not want to be percieved as radical. That in itself is proof of the repression of women’s rights issues. It has beeen very subtle in her generation an intolerance from men of even thinking about the topic.They say stupid things to stop conversation..see Imhotep above.
I have never liked the “pro-life” moniker. I agree that it is pro- Selective Life. Though, I’m not sure that using the “anti-abortion rights” semantics is a good idea. It’s too easy to say “pro-abortion” … which is not exactly what anyone wants to advertise.
The two ‘camps’ have historically been divided into “pro-choice” and “pro-life”. The basic issue here is “CHOICE”. I think the semantics should reflect this as the two sides of this issue is “pro choice” and “anti choice”. Abortion happens to be the issue of this angst… but it also encompasses birth control, sex education, access to basic healthcare services.
Basic rights reflect our opporunity to CHOOSE what is right for ourselves.
I have been “pro-choice” because I feel a person has the RIGHT to choose their path. However, I feel that life is a good choice so I am also ‘pro-life’ too.
So, are you pro-choice or anti-choice??? This is the basic issue at hand.
Clarification is necessary regarding the ethical debate concerning stem cell research. In the rhetoric of the political debate there is no distinction made between embryonic and adult stem cell research. The failure to distinguish between ESCR and other forms of stem cell research has muddled the issue. The great advances have been made in adult stem cell research resulting in numerous therapeutic uses including cardiovascular and cancer treatments.
As to the ‘right to choose’ debate, including ‘what is right for ourselves’ is another complex issue. Once pregnant, he decision of choice implicates not only the woman; there is another life that is involved, one that is unable to make choices for itself. It is an enormous responsibility, to make decisions that determine the fate of another life.