Minor rant...

[conuly]

I hatehateHATE the phrase "pro-life". Hate it with a vengeance. Many people who call themselves "pro-life" actually support the death penalty, and apparently don't see the hypocrisy. To my mind, unless the phrase is "pro-human-life", the only people who should be allowed to call themselves "pro-life" are antiwar, antideathpenalty, antiabortion VEGETARIANS. Possibly vegans, as all those animals get killed eventually. Still, reasonably, I'll allow them to pretend that pro-life means just humans. Guess what? They still shouldn't use that unless they're anti-war/deathpenalty. Anti-abortion works just as well and is less misleading, and it doesn't create a false sense of moral superiority. That attitude only works unless there isn't a moral dilemma, such as "is the mother's life at stake?" (unbelievably, some activists would not support abortion in such cases) or "does the fetus have some invariably fatal/painfully incurable disease?". Or even "can the mother afford to take care of the child?" Very few of the self-proclaimed "pro-lifers" are willing to adopt children to prevent them from being aborted. There are a few organizations which do do that, and they are to be commended.

Now, mind you, when I talk about "a false sense of moral superiority", I dislike "pro-choice" on the same grounds. However, I am less antagonistic towards it because 1. choice is not as strong a moral term as life and 2. I can't think of any good alternative. Pro-life could be anti-abortion, but it's absurd to call pro-choice pro-abortion, as many pro-choicers are against abortions, but feel that it is not society's place to condemn them. If somebody can come up with a good alternative name for "pro-choice", I'll gladly adopt/promote it.

Comments

[dandelion.livejournal.com]

living in england, i couldn't imagine having the death penalty, and wouldn't want to bring it back for the reasons connie said. recently on tv, there were specials on the history channel about men who'd been wrongly executed for things in the first world war such as running away when they'd been acting under orders. they weren't given a fair trial and were killed- had we not had the death penalty then, it would not have happened. there have also been a fair few people sentenced to life imprisonment, later found innocent. with the death penalty, they would have been executed.
to give a few examples of people wrongly executed as well:
1950: Timothy Evans is executed for the murder of his young daughter (after admitting killing his wife and daughter) on 9 March at Pentonville Prison. It is subsequently discovered that the real murderer was his landlord John Christie (a sexual serial killer) who was later executed for the murder of his wife. Evans received a posthumous pardon in 1966. See the article on 10 Rillington Place.
1950: George Kelly, who was hanged for murder, had his conviction quashed by the Court of Appeal in June 2003.
1953: On 28 January Derek Bentley is executed as an accomplice to a murder of a police officer by his 16 year old friend Christopher Craig. Craig as a minor was not executed and served 10 years. Derek Bentley was granted a posthumous pardon on 30 July 1998.
taken from http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_United_Kingdom

as for anti-abortionists...i think that it's wrong to force a mother to have a child after rape or incest, if the child could not be brought up in a secure (financially or emotionally) home, if the mother is too young or if the mother's life would be in danger and many other reasons. i do think, however, that abortion should not be used as an emercency contraception and there should be a reason for it.

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

Yeah, those're the reasons I'm only for capital punishment in theory and not in actuality. It's just the concept of it (or somehow getting rid of these people like they did in Minority Report) is a good one. I feel weird about letting murderers out for "good behavior"-- as if they can somehow redeem themselves after killing someone. That goes for rapists too. Don't start me on people who shout about rapists rights and how it "dehumanizes" them to put signs on their yards. 'Course, that system's buggered too. Even if you've been cleared of charges you're still listed as a sexual predator (that's just in the US though). You also can't work with children, ever. It's really bizarre. So much of this is great... in theory.

On the abortion note: I don't need to know about a woman's reasons, and I don't really care either. I just fight to make sure women have the option there. Because there's people like me that use the pill, condoms with spermicide and everything you can think of and keep an emergency $600 for an abortion stash (yes, I'm that paranoid), and still consider going to lesbianism as the perfect BC. But that's probably more information than most folks need, and this LJ isn't the place for a debate! Heh.

[conuly]

I agree, abortion is not contraception... but I think it's far too much to go asking why people are getting abortions before allowing them.