By
Joshua
Michail
6
February, 2012
Are
you 'pro-life' or 'pro-choice'? Clearly the
opposite of life is death. Or, in the case of inanimate objects it is
simply not being alive. But, for the sake of discussion let's not be
concerned with things that are not capable of living in the first
place. To be honest, the issue of what is life is not the primary
concern of this essay. Rather, the bigger issue is politics. Naturally,
when a group of people have a political agenda they want to make their
movement appealing.
The context of the subject
here is the right to
choose to have a
medical procedure, specifically the abortion of a pregnancy. The
self-labeled 'pro-life' movement seeks to deny this right, while the
'pro-choice' movement seeks to protect the right. But, what is in a
name? Honestly, a lot. In fact, names, in regards to movements and so
forth, are very often carefully selected to manipulate the public
opinion. So why are the opposing camps on the issue of abortion both
called “pro-” choice or life?
What is the opposite of
'pro-life'? Is it
'anti-life', or in other
words 'pro-death'? Well, it is necessarily implied, in only the most
banal and mischievous possible use. But that is wrong. The use of
'pro-life' is a calculated one, intended to demonize the opposition by
implication. The camp that is opposite the 'pro-life' camp is not in
favor of death, or against life. They are the 'pro-choice' movement. A
reasonable person ought to feel compelled to admit the absurdity in
wrongly equating the pro-choice movement with being 'pro-death'. But,
this is the sort of misleading tactics so shamelessly employed by the
sort of people who see the population as a means to an end, a set of
pawns, or even dupes. A name does not define a movement. It is, rather,
the positions of the movement in the context of the issue on which they
are concerned which matters most.
But what about the opposite
of
'pro-choice', what
is that? Is it
'anti-choice'? The answer is yes. Unlike the other way around, this is
an unqualified yes. The 'pro-life' movement seeks to usurp the rights
of women to choose whether to carry their pregnancy to natural birth,
or not. The 'pro-life' camp not only attempts to get the voting public
on their side, but they also lobby legislators to enact laws. The
agenda being to outlaw the choice. They want to get laws that remove
the option of abortion. This is a denial of choice. It is an
infringement on liberty.
Considering that in the United States we believe
in freedom, choice is
a part of our culture. Liberty is, in a very real sense, a cultural
ideal, it is a concept that is deeply embedded in the American psyche.
So what does abortion have to do with this? It is a choice. The idea is
that the law ought to, permit a woman to choose, for herself at any
given time whether she wants to abort her pregnancy or to give birth.
For most of our nation's history this has been the case. But, more
recently the movement that opposes this basic right has been quite
successful in their efforts to criminalize, to outlaw, abortions. An
effort to remove the choice and force all women to the same outcome for
their pregnancies.
So why do they call
themselves 'pro-life'?
Despite the expected spin,
one could reasonably suggest it's because they realized that most
people would be less supportive if they called themselves what they
really are, 'anti-choice'. They would likely have so very little
support if they were too honest. No one wants to identify themselves as
being an 'anti-choice' advocate. A fascinating fact, one ought to
consider, is that most so-called “pro-life” supporters also favor death
penalties. It seems a bit difficult to take as sincere about their
implied foundational belief of “Life is sacred”. How can any sensible
person accept the idea that life is precious and yet also endorse the
deliberate and needless ending of people's lives? These same people,
are mostly, all in agreement in their opposition to euthanasia – the
assisted suicide of terminally ill patients who suffer horribly from an
illness, from which, they have no hope of recovering. Further, the
majority of the mendaciously named “pro-life” movement are quite
satisfied to instruct desperately poor women that they not only have no
choice in adding hungry mouths they can't feed to their familial
responsibilities, but that they also will work tirelessly to deny any
assistance to them after they've produced the unfortunate child.
The bulk of the irritating
and loud voices
shrilly demanding that women
are denied the liberty necessary to plan their families also remain
unmoved by the fact that nearly all abortions done when laws prohibit
them are done in entirely unsavory and usually extraordinarily
dangerous locations and ways. The coat-hanger abortion is no joke,
before abortions were legal, desperate women with no access to
professional medical services for the procedure actually used
coat-hangers. More often than not, women doing this back alley,
self-procedure died, that's hardly “pro-life”. But, even worse still is
the issue of the motivation for the anti-choice movement, what they are
trying to do and the government.
The first amendment to the US
constitution
prohibits the government
from supporting, much less enforcing, religious ideology. These people,
the religiously motivated imposers against liberty and well-being, care
more about trying to add more souls to the collection of the lord.
Ironically, obviously, they don't see the abortion as a fast-track to
what they consider the ideal state of being – dead in this world and
residing with their god. They don't care about the overpopulation of
humanity on Earth, nor the fact that one billion humans as starving to
death already. They also don't give a damn that the bible, from which
they claim to get their religion and thus their anti-abortion position,
does not say anything against abortion. These tools, and they are just
that, believe entirely in the sanctity of a church add-on unsupported
by the holy book. The anti-abortion position was contrived based on the
idea of out-breeding other religions, to crowd out the unwashed masses
of heathens outside their faith. Now the anti-choice movement seeks to
have laws enacted that would criminalize abortion of pregnancies. The
motivation, by a large majority, for the anti-choice movement is the
Christian religion. More specifically, fundamentalist or conservative
Christianity. This makes the euphemistically and deceptively named
“pro-life” movement fundamentally un-American.
Copyright © 2012 by Joshua
Michail
All
Rights Reserved.
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