Is pro life a lie?

It’s an inaccurate term, yes. It’s an inaccurate term for “anti-abortion.”

@Zaku So being anti-abortion does not mean being in favor of life. So is it just for propaganda purposes?

Well, I have seen pro-abortion people try to insist that it is an accurate label because it represents what they hold as the central point of their movement, to save the lives of foetuses.

So the term aims to assert that the supposed point is to save lives.

And it seems to me that it is also an attempt to sneakily assert that foetuses are “lives”, because part of the position tends to be that foetuses are people with rights… so it seems to me (since I disagree with that premise) that it is trying to use what I would call a trick of language to name the movement in a way that has built into it words that contain the meaning that foetuses are “life”.

Also, “pro life” only means “pro life” in the context of saving the “lives” of foetuses by illegalizing or otherwise reducing access to abortions. The position that the term “pro life” represents has nothing to do with saving other (non-foetus) lives. Not even the pregnant women who might die in childbirth rather than having an abortion, nor the women who might die having unsafe improvised abortions if there was no access to legal abortions. Er, and also in some cases not the lives of people who provide abortion services, whom some anti-abortion people liken to “child” murderers, and in some cases have attacked.

It’s called a misnomer.

It is a lie, yes.
Just like a priest calling himself “anti child abuse”, because he only rapes boys, not girls.

I guess that’s like asking if Pro-choice is a lie. They don’t really believe people should get to have their own choices…that would lead to anarchy. I could choose to shoot someone if I liked. I could choose to throw paint bombs at people walking by. It’d be my choice and that is what they are really saying, right? If you want to take it out of context and extrapolate the word to its nth degree, you can make just about anything look foolish.

The examples you give are not pro-choice because they interfere with choices that others get to make.

You will no doubt reply that an abortion limits the choices of the infant. There is, however, a difference of opinion in this regard. There are those who say that a fetus is assigned a soul upon conception and is therefore fully human, and others who claim that it is only upon having consciousness that a child can be said to be human. Pro-choice allows a woman to decide for herself where she stands in this debate.

They don’t actually care about children. They saw some gruesome pictures and think its bad, which it is and I agree with that.

But they never seem to care about the children once they leave the womb. They don’t care that it costs tens of thousands of dollars just to have the kid and then the costs to raise the kid.

They don’t seem to care about all the ways kids are abused and exploited by people either.

@LostInParadise The examples I gave are right in line with the original question. The original question tried associating “Pro-life” with death sentence support or killing someone or even some thing. All lives are valuable was the point. So…if you are Pro-choice then by that same logic all choices should be valuable. You value the right of someone to choose a course of action. Now you want to try limiting it back to only abortion which is not what the original question was asking. If you want to limit it only to abortion then fine…why don’t Pro-Choice people respect a father’s choices? What if he wants the child? So it is still a lie.

@Blackberry That makes a lot a assumptions and stirs in identity politics into the whole mix. You assume all parents are the same…that they don’t care about children or that they abuse children. I, personally, got divorced and won custody of my three children, ages 2,2,& 6. I wanted custody because I felt they would be abused by their mother. I’m not the only man I know that wants and loves children, and there are lots of women that want and love children. I will give you that there are some that don’t care at all. But we don’t regulate who can be a mother or a father. What was the line from the movie Parenthood? You know, Mrs. Buckman, you need a license to buy a dog, to drive a car – hell, you even need a license to catch a fish. But they’ll let any butt-reaming asshole be a father.

Many may love children but can’t afford the next child or maybe the parents have addiction issues, mental health issues, legal issues, etc. Yes help is available for those things but not everyone is successful at seeking help. Sometimes it’s just something like the mom grew up this way and so this is not anything shocking to her. For that example, I am thinking of families with chronic lice issues. They miss school due to untreated lice, they don’t see this as a big deal because they grew up with untreated lice. To the average person, this is unthinkable.

I worked in the child welfare field for about ten years, believe me, I could tell you many stories about parents with addiction, mental health issues, chronic lice, educational neglect, medical neglect, housing issues (slumlords, etc.), financial issues, the list goes on and on.

“Pro-life” is a euphemism, yes. “Anti-abortion” is a better term.

Meh. It’s a name. It’s positive. It’s hard to argue against in principle, and you know what it means. English is like that sometimes. @seawulf575 is right; words can mean lots of things, it doesn’t make them lies.

@Zaku….no one is “pro abortion.” They are pro choice and know that it’s none of their business.

Right, but we tend to say “pro-X” to indicate support for the legalization of something, e.g. “pro-death penalty”, “pro-same sex marriage”. Why wouldn’t the same thing apply to abortion? Because abortion is distasteful and you don’t want to be perceived as liking it?

Because being “pro” something means you’re all for it and want to see it happen a lot. Nobody thinks abortion is a great thing and wants to see more of it. “Pro choice” people understand that it’s not their life and it’s noone’s business.

Neither side wants to include the term abortion in their name. They want to link to some higher principle. I think the term pro-life is a bit of a cover-up. The name implies promotion of all life forms, including cockroaches and bacteria, and would seem to imply vegetarianism. One reason that they don’t call themselves pro-human-life is that this spotlights their belief that an embryo receives a soul upon conception, which a great many would dispute.

@Dutchess_III I guess I don’t agree with those implications of “pro-”. I don’t assume someone who is pro-death penalty loves it and wants to see it happen a lot, they just support it as a just sentence for some cases. I’m just trying to be consistent about the usage (or not) of euphemisms. I don’t think either term (pro-choice/pro-life) is inaccurate exactly, but they are definitely skirting around the real issue (i.e. abortion) and I don’t think you can fairly criticize “pro-life” without also criticizing “pro-choice”. Either both are fine or neither are fine.

The argument based on names of positions seems to be terribly dysfunctional. The main thing it makes me think is that I wish our democracy were restricted to adults who are capable of actually discussing the issues without juvenile word games or binary thinking.

To @Zaku‘s point – I think we all understand the intentional framing inherent in choosing a name to represent a position. But such labels can only point to a vague, inaccurate position on one particular question. It’s not meant to be a substitute for further explanation or discussion.

Therefore, we can use or choose to re-frame the labeling by choosing the way we refer to the general position. But that is just the beginning.

@seawulf575
You care about your kids, and that’s pretty normal. You care about kids in your immediate circle like your friends and family and that’s completely normal as well.

I’m referring to the people that claim to be pro-life, as if they really care about children, yet say things like “I don’t want my tax money going to planned parenthood because all they do is abortions” or “I don’t want my tax money going to some lady using her ebt card because she can’t keep her legs closed” and turning a blind eye to hundreds of mexican kids in cages, with some being abused by border patrol agents or when asked about civilian deaths by American soldiers hands say things like “freedom isn’t free”.

Unfortunately I’ve seen people that claimed to be pro life say some pretty awful things. I’m more just tired of the blatant posturing and feigning empathy.

But that’s also my fault for using stereotypes and painting with such a wide brush so I apologize for that.

@Blackberry I think what you are mistaking is the meaning behind some of what you hear. Or maybe the feelings aren’t being expressed correctly. There is an idea that you are missing that is called responsibility. It appears in many of the cases you expressed above. It is at the root of many of the problems. “I don’t want my tax money going to planned parenthood because all they do is abortions”. You see that as someone supporting life not supporting an agency that may help with some medical issues. But those that support life don’t support wholesale abortions or abortions used for convenience. And like it or not, PP is the biggest provider of those. PP was based on, and continues to celebrate, the ideas of Margaret Sanger and Eugenics. Eliminating/controlling a race through elimination of their offspring. I don’t support that at all. I don’t support abortions used for convenience. Those abortions are done because the people involved (men and women) were irresponsible. They decided that unprotected sex was okay because they can just get an abortion if they want.
“I don’t want my tax money going to some lady using her ebt card because she can’t keep her legs closed”. There is a corollary to this that says I don’t want my tax money going to some guy who chooses not to work or who is making money through other means. But let’s keep this to the woman because we are talking about life. That statement isn’t about the children. It is about the responsibility of the woman. Believe it or not, I know a young lady that got pregnant before she was even close to being married and had no particular career though she was very bright and had all sorts of scholarships to go to college. She had the baby and lived with her mom. She started getting welfare and EBT. Her mom actually encouraged her to have another child because it would increase what they got every month. Being “poor” they weren’t held accountable for the medical bills so there was no cost except the pregnancy. So let’s look at the responsibility here. Irresponsibility in getting pregnant the first time, and then irresponsibility in getting pregnant the next couple times because she was gaming the system. She now has three children that she is raising in the same poor lifestyle she has embraced. That, to me, seems irresponsible as well. Metaphorically like putting kids in cages, isn’t it?
turning a blind eye to hundreds of mexican kids in cages, with some being abused by border patrol agents We have discussed this topic many times on these pages, though I can’t remember if you were in on those discussions when I was. There is great outrage about this from the left, blaming President Trump for conditions captured on film showing kids in cages at the border. Yet those same people expressing outrage always ignore that those pictures were from when Obama was president and it was his policies that started that whole mess. But again, let’s keep to life and responsibility issues. You seem concerned that there are people kept in fenced in enclosures when they are caught entering the country illegally. You claim the kids are sometimes abused by border agents. I’ve never heard that one, though it may happen. If border agents are abusing them, then hold them accountable (responsible) for their actions. But let’s back up 10,000 steps to the part you are ignoring. The parents showed irresponsibility in dragging children on a trek that is several thousand miles long. A trek that is fraught with hazards that include sickness, inury, theft, human trafficking, rape, and murder. Those that scream about the kids being in cages always want to ignore this which, in my mind, is even worse. Sometimes the kids are sent by themselves. To me that is irresponsible and dangerous. They pay thousands of dollars to someone to help them get into this country illegally. They do that instead of paying $190 for a visa application. That is irresponsible and foolish in my mind. If they survive the trip and get caught, they have now entered the country illegally. That means they have violated a law and are arrested. The last time I checked, we don’t keep families together if one of the parents commits a crime and has to go to jail, nor do we forgive the crimes of a person just because they have children. Since we don’t do that for Americans, it is irresponsible to believe we should somehow do that for someone that isn’t a citizen. “Putting kids in cages” is probably better than what they have been through: they are getting food, shelter, medical treatment, and there are people making sure they are safe. Until they can be sent back to their people back home.
Instead of ascribing some meaning to what you believe you hear, you might want to ask the “why” that statement is being stated.

@seawulf575
Yea definitely I agree, which is why I apologized for stereotyping with such a wide brush. Some of my emotions probably came out in the post. Although I can’t claim to understand the plight of the people born in Mexico, I do believe some of them are attempting to escape a fate they believe is worse than the trek through the desert (for example, corrupt governments or cartels, some that were inadvertently trained and armed by the U.S.). But I agree the U.S. has no choice but to process them. Refugees are a reality of the world and we can’t take them all on (but hopefully make it easier for them to become legal). They broke the law, but unfortunately broke the law during the present time and got caught. If they simply break the law successfully, and wait for enough time to pass to simply change the history and say it’s not their fault for what happened in the past then we can all move on I guess.

I do hope they do hold evil border patrol agents accountable, preferably not like they hold some of their bad police accountable, which reinforces the culture by sweeping it under the rug.

And these issues are why many US Voters now feel trapped since it actually doesn’t matter who we vote for. A third party isn’t going to win, and we’re not allowed to complain if don’t vote, correct? So I guess I’ll vote for a third party and continue to voice my opinion.

And I’m very familiar with the term “responsibility”. It’s what prevents me from having a child yet, and why my mother only had 1 kid, even though I’ve seen other “responsible” families make the same mistakes your friend on welfare made, yet they get to be saved by family members and are given a bunch of money.

Asking a family member for 5,000 dollars to cover up the same mistakes poorer people make isn’t really responsible though, is it? One is just a product of generational wealth and a stable family dynamic, that gets to continue a reckless lifestyle because they know there’s always someone there to pay for their mistakes, while the other simply just has to realize they made a mistake and adjust their lifestyle. Some do it and some can’t, as unfortunately things like poverty aren’t the easiest to escape from. Some of us make it out, though, it’s just harder. You’re using 1 example of a person that didn’t make it. But there are many that have made it out and are very responsible.

@seawulf575 “They don’t really believe people should get to have their own choices…that would lead to anarchy.”

It would be reasonable for an English-speaker who is unfamiliar with the concepts involved to assume that “pro-life” applied to life beyond human zygotes. I don’t think they would assume that someone who is “pro-choice” was an anarchist (because they would probably be described as “an anarchist”...).

@Blackberry I agree. After the kid is born, they’re on their own. If the Mom needs help (because the father disappeared) that’s her own damn fault. She should have kept her legs closed. No help for her.