Not really. "Pro-life" isn't a very accurate statement as the definition of "life" is not agreed. "Pro-choice" is accurate, as it denotes a position which is in favour of giving women the choice to abort, it's not "pro-abortion" in that it is encouraging women to have an abortion.
Eh pro-choice seems just as misleading to me. Choice could mean any choice about anything. Seems like they're trying to conflate a choice about abortion with being in favor of any ordinary choice. Both sides have their own preferred terms that try to conflate something uncontroversial with a highly disputed position. That's a common enough thing in politics for sure. It's highly biased and not as all neutral to allow one side to pick a misleading name while requiring the other side to use a more literal name.
I think we should use "pro-abortion" and "anti-abortion". That is, after all, the relative positions of the two sides, and it tells us the specific issue at question.
But the word "abortion" has negative connotations, so being "pro" abortion has negative connotations.
I, personally, am against abortions. I, however, understand that it’s not my body that a baby will grow in and it’s not my circumstances that the persons considering an abortion live in. I can’t put myself in their shoes. I’m firmly pro-choice. It’s their bodies and their lifes.
I’m also pro-life as in “create the circumstances that make as few people as possible face that choice.” Create circumstances where being a single parent is not the first ranking cause of being or becoming poor. Create support networks. Create a suitable safety net. Ensure proper childcare options. Make sure that mothers don’t die during childbirth from entirely preventable causes. If you want to be pro-life in a real sense of the word, care about what happens after the baby is born.
I'm genuinely curious, so please don't take this as an attack. It sounds like (and please correct me if I'm mistaken here) that you're against abortion essentially because they don't affect you or isn't something you would choose to do. Is that accurate?
I'm curious what makes you against abortion, then? Most people who are against abortion don't want anyone to have them (with certain exceptions) because it's effectively taking a life. But that's obviously not your reason, and I'm must confess I'm struggling to come up with a scenario wherein you can be against abortions, but think they're okay for other folks. That doesn't sound like against it to my ears, because you are supporting it in general (i.e. you wouldn't vote to make them illegal). And supporting abortion would make you pro-abortion.
Again, not trying to attack or belittle or anything like that, I'm absolutely, genuinely curious.
I, personally, would not choose an abortion. But I’m male and well enough off with a sufficiently good support network by friends and family so that I’m fairly confident I could make a good living even as a single parent. We do have a 2yo kid, so I have a rough idea of how much work even a single one can be :)
I wish that no abortions were necessary. It’s an ordeal. A human in the making doesn’t get to live. (I consciously avoid “killed”, I don’t consider 8 week old embryos living beings). In that sense I’m against abortions. I wish we wouldn’t need them. For the record: I’m not religious.
However, other people’s circumstances differ. A woman has to actually carry the child to term. Pregnancy is a major health risk. Kids rate high as risk factor for poverty. Men tend to leave families and leave the kid behind. They might not feel ready for a kid yet. I value their bodily autonomy higher than my limited personal view on the matter. I can’t possibly enforce my choice on them.
I’m pro reducing abortions. I’m against banning them. It’s their choice to make and I’ve know people go through that and I’ve never felt like it was an easy choice to them. I consider myself lucky that I was never forced to make that decision.
The only way out of that dilemma is to help people not end up facing that choice (sex education, easy access to birth control, ...) and to make it easier for people to decide against abortions (health care, child support, ...) Reduce total harm inflicted. I consider anyone calling himself pro-life without first tackling those issues to be a fake.
Let's really call it what it is then: pro-choice and anti-choice. The issue has less to do with abortion and more to do with bodily autonomy. The anti-choice side feels that once you're impregnated, you should relinquish your independence. A lot of them don't care about the circumstances (rape, incest, etc) or the health of the woman carrying the burden (it's ok if you die if that baby lives) and they sure don't care about the actual life of the child once it's out (no public health care, cut funding to social programs, reduce spending on public schools). This is a control issue.
Few people are "pro-abortion" but lots of people are ant-choice. So if we're gonna be accurate...
So they will call the pro-choice movement by the name the pro-choice movement uses and they'll call the pro-life movement by the name the pro-choice movement uses as well. Disingenious to pretend this is neutral.
Just as readers aren't obliged to take what is printed in the newspaper as unbiased fact, or even an honest attempt at it, for obvious reasons. Luckily, I'm sure this is the only topic that has the wording massaged to influence opinions.
You’re attacking a strawman. I didn’t say readers should take anything as unbiased. I just pointed out that the guardian neither pretends to be unbiased, nor would it be obliged to be. So what’s the point you’re making?
> I didn’t say readers should take anything as unbiased.
Nor did I say you did, speaking of strawmen.
> So what’s the point you’re making?
I guess that creating an implicit/casual mainstream narrative that is objectively false may contribute to second order unintended negative consequences (as in: "hmmm, if they're being untrue about <subject A>, maybe they're doing the same on <subjects B,C,D> as <authoritarian leader> claims"), and that it is doubly silly to do when you mostly have the truth on your side.
It's only a theory, measuring such things is notoriously difficult, but I think it jives extremely well with human behavior on both political extremes.
The term 'fetal heartbeat bill' certainly has that vibe, which is why The Guardian is opting to use different more neutral (and certainly scientifically more palatable) terms.
> I am thinking you've drastically missed the point of the comment you're replying to.
Nope, youre the one missing his point. The commentor above is accusing the newspapers of Orwellian newspeak, where really they are just responding to the orwellain newspeak in use by the people naming the bill to begin with.
The newspaper is seeking to clarifly the misleading actions of others. Doing so is not newspeak. Its their role in soceity.
And here I thought I was supposed to trust what's in the newspaper because their job is to report the facts, unlike those biased websites that are often run by agents of a foreign government (or, so I read in several newspapers).
> Some doctors who opposed the bans say the term was developed as political tactic to win support for the bills.
Isn't this what all political bills are though? Often the fight over this stuff is over language? I mean we still have the Patriot act - no one feels the need to redefine how we talk about that one?
Also, considering this:
> “What’s interpreted as a heartbeat in these bills is actually electrically induced flickering of a portion of fetal tissue that will become the heart as the embryo develops.”
Isn't a heartbeat in general to be considered an "electrically induced flickering" of sorts?
Seems weird for the newspapers to not at least call the bills what the legislators are calling it and then explain why in long-form why they're wrong.
> Isn't a heartbeat in general to be considered an "electrically induced flickering" of sorts?
My reading is that the argument is not that a heartbeat isn't "electrically induced flickering" but that the thing flickering should not yet be classified as a heart, and so it's disingenuous to call it a heartbeat.
> Isn't a heartbeat in general to be considered an "electrically induced flickering" of sorts?
I don’t think the criticism is on the “electrically induced flickering” part of the statement. The entire embryo at that stage is about the size of a kidney bean.
There’s no heart to speak of, and probably no audible beat. (Doctors, correct me here)
> Isn't a heartbeat in general to be considered an "electrically induced flickering" of sorts?
A heartbeat is an "electrically induced flickering", yes. Neon lights are also "electrically induced flickering", but I wouldn't call that a heartbeat.
> Is gutted fish without a head alive just because its muscles are spasming?
The difference being that a gutted fish will not eventually turn into an alive fish. But the "electrically induced flickering" detected in a mother's womb will, in fact, turn into a heart, inside a "blob of cells" that will, in fact, turn into a human.
8th week is so early the risk of loosing the embryo naturally is still very high. I know more than one couple that lost embryos at that stage - my mother in fact, multiple times. So that blob of cells is very much still in the “might turn into a human” state.
My mother-in-law had this happen several times as well. But "might not turn into a human" is, in my opinion (and my mother-in-law's), insufficient reason to allow abortions for any reason, up to (and in some cases, after) the moment of birth.
You might turn out to be a murderer; you wouldn't appreciate it if we preemptively threw you in jail.
That's just not true. The science is very clear on that.
"Weeks 6 to 7
Arm and leg buds start to grow.
Your baby's brain forms into 5 different areas. Some cranial nerves are visible.
Eyes and ears begin to form.
Tissue grows that will become your baby's spine and other bones.
Baby's heart continues to grow and now beats at a regular rhythm.
Blood pumps through the main vessels."
Ok, that's fair. I was being a little hyperbolic with "it doesn't have any human characteristics yet", which is obviously untrue.
I think the point still stands that at some point you draw an arbitrary line of when mere potential for human life becomes human life, and I wouldn't draw that line early on in the embryo stage.
> Baby's heart continues to grow and now beats at a regular rhythm. Blood pumps through the main vessels.
This implies that the heart is pumping the blood; yet I believe that at this point it's still the mother's heart doing the pumping. The author is likely fully aware that readers will be making incorrect assumptions; therefore it should be downvoted to oblivion.
At the end of the 4th week of gestation, the heartbeats of the embryo begin.
The heart, whose development starts at the 3rd week of gestation, has rapid and irregular contractions capable of pumping the blood inside the vessels.
At this period, the developing circulatory system allows maternal- embryonic nutritive and gaseous changes at the chorionic villi.
Seems fair.
> and “pro-choice” over “pro-abortion”
ok... what