Enfin de retour! - "Anti-choice"

It is two hours to the conclusion 3 Mar 2009 and I am finally blogging again. I hope that I'll be a bit more regular from now on, but no promises.

The last six weeks have been quite a journey. I've had to deal with issues concerning Évariste, draw up a set of new approaches to the Plan, and come to terms with the reality that seemingly innocuous 1-credit EVSC 350L might as well account for 11 out of my 22 credits. However, these are all stories for another time or day. Right now, just to getting my hands wet, I'm going to write a tidbit about abortion.

The issue I want to address doesn't actually pertain to the whole abortion argument—it concerns semantics. Yes, I am going to describe why I like to use the term "anti-choice" to describe those opposed to a woman's right to an abortion. You might think that it's pointless, but I disagree. Naturally, for pro-choicers, "anti-choice" is a much more forceful appellation than "pro-life", but "anti-choice" is also a more accurate and meaningful description. Here's why.

It is a proven fact that you can be both pro-choice and pro-life. I am pro-choice (duh), but I certainly wouldn't lead a careless sex life just because I know that I have the right to an abortion anytime I might need it. I am not going to encourage the abortion of every zygote/embryo/fetus because I am "anti-life". Indeed, I will most likely never have an abortion. But if some woman out there needed an abortion, then I would fully support her right to have one. Even if that woman simply wanted an abortion, I would support her right to have one. Thomas Jefferson said that we should not be afraid "to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it." This principle works because the vast majority of people are "reasonable" and only a tiny fraction of people "err". (Do you think that most pro-choicers are like me or like Dracula?) It therefore follows that amid a reasonable society, the danger posed by these errors is much less than the danger of outlawing them, and anything that might lead to them, and anything that might lead to that, etc. This is one of the ideas of libertarianism. (Wow, I thought I was talking about semantics.)

There are many examples that parallel the statement that "just because I am pro-choice does not mean that I eat babies." Just because I support gay rights does not mean that I am lesbian. Just because I oppose gun control does not mean that I go around sniping my enemies (my aim would be horrible anyway). Just because I am anti-draft does not mean that I will not support my country's war efforts if I believe that it is fighting for a worthy cause. Along the same lines, just because I am atheist does not mean that I go out of my way to commit every possible "sin".

I digress. To summarise: I have just shown how you can be both pro-choice and pro-life. But, as far as I know, you cannot be both "pro-life" (in the anti-abortion sense) and support a woman's right to choose.

The term "pro-life" is therefore meaningless because the vast majority of humans, regardless of their stance on abortion rights, are pro-life. But "anti-choice" is meaningful because only pro-choicers are, well, pro-choice.

(Countless other people have probably had the same idea and followed the same line of reasoning. But if that is the case, then let me say that I came up with all of this independently. Convergent evolution FTW.)