The Patriot Post® · Cowardly Abortion Lingo
Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, GOP politicians have seen several losses both in the voting booth and in state legislation. A conversational private meeting was proposed for a small select group of GOP senators to discuss what may have changed in the abortion debate. According to the Senate Leadership Fund super PAC, the problem is the way that people now understand key terms surrounding the debate.
The terms in question are “pro-life” and “pro-choice.” According to some poll results that were presented to the GOP senators, Americans see the term “pro-life” as shorthand for banning all abortion and “pro-choice” as having exceptions. Even Senator Josh Hawley admitted after viewing these polls: “Many voters think [‘pro-life’] means you’re for no exceptions in favor of abortion ever, ever, and ‘pro-choice’ now can mean any number of things. So the conversation was mostly oriented around how voters think of those labels, that they’ve shifted. So if you’re going to talk about the issue, you need to be specific.”
To some extent, perhaps it is a bit of confusing messaging, but that is not necessarily the fault of pro-life Republicans. Pro-choice Democrats have a position that seems flexible, generous even. How lovely is it to be on the side that is for choice? The uneducated voter hears that and thinks having choices — which is synonymous with freedom in the liberal lexicon — is the highest form of good. However, what is the choice being presented? When is it morally acceptable to kill an unborn baby?
Pro-choicers tell us that 1) it’s not a baby and 2) the decision should be between the woman and her doctor. Their first position denies biological reality. A fetus in the womb is a human baby, just at an earlier stage of development. Blurring that line is an important lie for pro-choicers because the dehumanization of the unborn child justifies their next point, which is that the mother and her doctor should choose. The goal of pro-choice advocates is to ensure that a mother can abort her child for any reason at any point. It’s an official Democrat Party position.
Pro-lifers, on the other hand, encompass a spectrum ranging from full-on abortion abolitionists to conceding exceptions when the mother’s life is in danger, or even sometimes for rape or incest. The goal of all these pro-lifers is to save children’s lives and help their mothers.
The only term that really should be changed is “pro-choice.” For women who are faced with this decision to keep or abort their babies, the act of abortion is often presented to them as expedient. They are not offered alternatives like adoption or given resources to help them. Instead, they are shuffled through abortion clinics like cattle and their helpless children are murdered. Then these shattered and broken women are shunted out into the world as if it were nothing. There is no follow-up, no care.
The proper term for “pro-choice” is merely “pro-abortion.” “Pro-life” means just that: People are for not killing babies; they are for supporting mothers and families who are in difficult situations.
Politically, perhaps, it might be expedient to reexamine the terms, but being pro-life — whatever level that may be — isn’t the word that needs a marketing makeover. The GOP would do well to continue to stand firm on this issue.