Pro-choice is not pro-abortion.
- How can “pro-choice” not be pro-abortion when the choice in question is abortion? When the question is whether or not abortion can be a legal/moral choice?
- We’re talking about morality and legality, not “choice.” Unless we deny freewill, we’re not really arguing about choice per se. Human beings have freewill-they can choose good or evil. Thus, intentional abortion, like any homicide, is always a “choice,” legal or not. The real questions: among all the possible choices involving innocent children, which are moral? Which should be legal?
- You cannot separate the “choice” from its action (object). Choice, without a referent object, is meaningless. “I’m for choice.” What choice? Rape? Murder? Child pornography?
- In practice, if you are not expressly against abortion, you are at minimum implicitly in favor of it. An analogy: “We are not in favor of slavery, only for the right to choose whether or not to own one.” This, of course, is a de facto sanction of slavery as legally and morally valid. Likewise, the statement that one is in favor of the “choice” to abort strictly defines abortion as a legal or moral choice. Believing that abortion is a legally and morally valid choice is the crucial pro-abortion tenet.
Further, any attempt to define pro-abortion as actively promulgating abortion, but “pro-choice” as abortion-neutral is in reality creating a distinction without a difference. The major “pro-choice” groups can hardly be described as neutral observers passively monitoring abortion from the sidelines bereft of any relevant ideology or interests. - “Pro-choice” is a euphemism for pro-abortion. If the issue were slavery, “pro-choice” would be a euphemism for pro-slavery.
If abortion is not evil, why do so many of its advocates reject the objective term pro-abortion? - Pro and anti are well understood prefixes meaning “for” and “against,” respectively. In classifying someone’s position on abortion “pro-abortion” or “anti-abortion” are the most objective terms possible. If someone is afraid of being called pro-abortion, perhaps their conscience is telling them something!