As if we needed another example...
Obama: Healthcare reform should not provide money for abortions. Even though that's the law and this bill totally doesn't change that, let me now issue an executive order to clarify that this bill will in no way let public money fund abortions.
Conservative Democrats: Yay! We feel better about this now.
The 'pro-life' movement: FUCK YOU! YOU HATE BABIES! GET AWAY FROM US, YOU BABY-HATING TRAITORS.
No, really. (link to the CNN story)
Interestingly, we've now passed the point where I can say or write 'pro-life' without the quotes. Just can't do it anymore. Maybe there was a point once, maybe it really was about life, but it's clearly not now, and I refuse to accept a heuristic that puts me in the anti-life camp.
(Much like the 'family values' shtick: I love family. Mine, yours, the whole concept. But the people on TV talking about Family are the same people saying there's something wrong with single mothers, gay partners, generations of atheists, and families of choice. I'm pro-family, and I'm pissed that term has been appropriated by people who are hellbent on denying the value of my family.)
I'm also really sick of hearing pro-choice conflated with pro-abortion. 'Even democrats turn around and choose to keep an unexpected pregnancy' is classed with anti-abortion protesters choosing to abort, or cat people getting dogs, as if those things were equivalently contradictory. The Stacey Zallie billboards in DC scream 'Not Pro-Life, Not Pro-choice, just support' as if supporting choice means supporting only one choice. That's crap. Just because one group is dogmatically set on one and only one course of action for everyone does not mean that everyone else is equally set on imposing their values on the world.
Are people really so incapable of respecting another person's agency and individual situation that they just can't fathom that pro-choice might not be a euphemism; it might not be code for making everyone do one thing?
Are people really so simple minded that's all they can wrap their heads around?
Conservative Democrats: Yay! We feel better about this now.
The 'pro-life' movement: FUCK YOU! YOU HATE BABIES! GET AWAY FROM US, YOU BABY-HATING TRAITORS.
No, really. (link to the CNN story)
Interestingly, we've now passed the point where I can say or write 'pro-life' without the quotes. Just can't do it anymore. Maybe there was a point once, maybe it really was about life, but it's clearly not now, and I refuse to accept a heuristic that puts me in the anti-life camp.
(Much like the 'family values' shtick: I love family. Mine, yours, the whole concept. But the people on TV talking about Family are the same people saying there's something wrong with single mothers, gay partners, generations of atheists, and families of choice. I'm pro-family, and I'm pissed that term has been appropriated by people who are hellbent on denying the value of my family.)
I'm also really sick of hearing pro-choice conflated with pro-abortion. 'Even democrats turn around and choose to keep an unexpected pregnancy' is classed with anti-abortion protesters choosing to abort, or cat people getting dogs, as if those things were equivalently contradictory. The Stacey Zallie billboards in DC scream 'Not Pro-Life, Not Pro-choice, just support' as if supporting choice means supporting only one choice. That's crap. Just because one group is dogmatically set on one and only one course of action for everyone does not mean that everyone else is equally set on imposing their values on the world.
Are people really so incapable of respecting another person's agency and individual situation that they just can't fathom that pro-choice might not be a euphemism; it might not be code for making everyone do one thing?
Are people really so simple minded that's all they can wrap their heads around?