Let's talk about abortion!

When I started writing this blog, I wanted to try to avoid talking about politics. However, I find that is the sort of thing I'd talk to myself about often, so I decided there's not much point in keeping it away from the blog. While I'll make reference to my beliefs, I'm going to try to keep political posts focused less on beliefs themselves than on how they're perceived in the public sphere, which I think is an accurate description of this post. Besides, no one reads this blog anyway, so I don't really have anyone to offend.

So, abortion. I do consider myself pro-abortion, and I use that term rather than another one for reasons I'll get to. I do believe the government shouldn't step in to tell women they can't have abortions...but I'm not militant about that belief. That is to say (and if someone actually read this, they'd probably be offended), I'm not going to stand up and say, "How dare you take away the right to kill a fetus?!" It's really a judgment call on my part to be pro-abortion, and it's not something I can back up with rigorous documentation or appeal to facts; really, it's mostly a gut feeling. I'm wary about the intrusion of government power, and I feel banning abortion would go too far. Other people might feel it doesn't go too far, and I can respect that. I can't get all offended that someone feels that way.

But my views on abortion go beyond that. Not only can I not get militant about it, I don't even really care about it that much. I am far more interested in economic policy, foreign policy, hell, even gay marriage, than I am in abortion policy, because I feel that on the grand scale of things, it just isn't that important. (Perhaps that's why I feel the government shouldn't bother with it.)

This brings me to why I've decided to reject the labels "pro-choice" and "pro-life". First of all, needless to say both labels are just spin, and I don't like spin. I try to be a no-bullshit type of guy. People who are pro-abortion say they're "pro-choice" because being pro-abortion, well, first of all, just sounds sadistic, but second of all, "pro-choice" just sounds downright American. We should be able to choose for ourselves. And people who are pro-life could call themselves "anti-abortion", but you never want to identify yourself as "anti-" anything; you want to be for something! And what better to be for other than life? I mean, who's anti-life, other than serial killers?

But what I really don't like about the labels "pro-choice" and "pro-life" is that they try to be about more than they really are; they try to expand the issue. Being "pro-choice" means you're in favor of the choice to have (or not have) an abortion, but the implication is that you're in favor of choosing, in general, rather than being barred from making the choice. Well, that's all well and good, but does being in favor of the choice to have an abortion really say anything about how much you want to let people make their own choices? How many people think women should get to choose to have an abortion, but shouldn't get to choose whether they can smoke in a bar or restaurant? How many people believe in choice for abortion, but not for paying into Social Security? I submit there is no correlation between the two; being "pro-abortion" doesn't necessarily mean being "pro-choice".

And the same is true for "pro-life". People who are opposed to abortion regularly explain their opposition in terms of "protecting the sanctity of human life," and believing that "all life is sacred." Well, y'know, I think I'm a pretty "pro-life" guy, in a sense; I believe in respecting other people's lives, and enjoying my own life; I think life is worth living, and believe every day I wake up is a great one. In short, I don't think that being for abortion makes one any less "pro-life". Beliefs about abortion have a connection to beliefs about life, but it does not have to be a defining one; frankly, I think it's a rather tenuous one.

So I think we should abandon the terms "pro-choice" and "pro-life", and stop trying to pretend this whole thing is more than it is. It's really just about one thing, abortion, so let's say it's about abortion. You're either pro-abortion, or anti-abortion. Now, those who would call themselves "pro-choice" may object to the label pro-abortion because it implies being in favor of the act, when many pro-choice activists are opposed to the act, but think government shouldn't ban it. I understand this objection, and I would say "pro-allowing people to have abortions", but, sorry, it's just too damn long :-p. (I don't think the pro-life activists would really have a problem with the designation "anti-abortion".) At any rate, I'm trying to get away from the connotations of these words and just focus on the denotations. If someone says "pro-abortion", we all know what that means. It's not a good PR term, but frankly, I think we should all get away from the PR mentality; hell that's what I meant above, when I criticized "pro-choice" and "pro-life" as spin terms, and that I try to be no-bullshit. To me, no-bullshit pretty much means you're not going to try to sugarcoat what you think just to make it sound better to people. Let's call things what they are, and that's what I'm going to do: from now on, I'm done saying "pro-choice" and "pro-life", and I'm just going to stick to the accurate terms: "pro-abortion" and "anti-abortion".