There has been quibbling lately over the term "Pro-life" being discarded by liberals (and other thinking people) and being replaced by "Anti-Choice". This post is in support of using the term anti-choice.
I do not get involved in "the abortion debate" because the anti-choice forces have set and controlled the framing of the 'debate". If one did not spend a moment looking at the so-called "bigger picture" one would get the nutty idea that "pro-life forces" actually CARED about 'human life".
NOTE: I altered the original title from a nerdier title about authorship triangles
The joke is on you if you think, for a nanosecond these people give a damn about human life. They don't and really, it's crystal clear they don't, when you see the big picture.
Even anecdotal commentary is telling - how many times have you said, thought, or heard "they care about the fetus until it's born"? That is the closest those people get to caring about a life.
But the right's sanctimonious war on abortion is not about saving babies. It's entirely about controlling women by eliminating the power of choice.
And, as I intend to point out, the bigger picture is this effort to limit choice isn't just focused on women.
We are all being targeted - all of our ability to choose or make important decisions for ourselves or our families - and therefore our power - is under siege.
Authorship Triangle
An 'authorship trianle' is more or less phrased as follows
A creates B
B creates C
C creates A
It's like an active process versus a static, one-dimensional idea.
I see it this way: if the right can eliminate choice they can eliminate our personal power. They howl about 'irresponsibility' as a distraction from the facts. If we have no choice, how can we be responsible?
Choice is power: if we can chose one thing over another for our reasons, we have power. If we are denied an ability to choose, we are technically powerless.
Power is responsibility: Irresponsible use of power is potentially very dangerous and destructive. Responsible use of power leads us to that which we desire to achieve (generally speaking: law of unintended consequences/unforeseen impact being set aside for the moment)
Responsibility requires choice - Responsibility is a choice people consciously make. Irresponsibility is often simply not thinking ahead and not thinking ahead precludes conscious choice.
"Abortion" is framed by the Right as "fetus-killing" and by the Left as "a woman's right to choose". I'm a Leftie and have no qualms about a woman's right to choose.
The Right is currently ALL ABOUT limiting women's right to choose and it really doesn't stop with 'abortion'.
I have always observed that the Right's objection to abortion is linked to controlling women for sexual reasons. Sex education is opposed, in my eyes because it leads to MORE women's choice.
The act of using abortions 'carelessly' as a form of 'birth control' is, in and of itself, abhorrent, as well as really unhealthy for the women involved. It seems to be one of the Right's objections but they blow it well out of proportion.
Proper contraception pretty much limits unintended pregnancy, but we're back to the Right's intentions to limit sex education as well their war on contraception.
Personal Choice is Personal Power
In this life we have to make decisions - some great, some small.
It is my observation that the Right, as well as our Federal Government, which I see as primarily filled with rightwing values, is all about limiting people's rights to choose, not just women's. This is a main reason I think we should use the term "Anti-Choice".
These people want to limit all manner of our choice in a bid to limit ALL of our power.
It's not just a woman's right to choose 'an abortion'.
Consider the following:
Euthansia: the right to die with dignity, or whatever term one feels applies. Sometimes we have to make terrible decisions for our family members. Lingering, suffering illnesses with no hope of recovery, terrible accidents, other unforeseen incidents leave our loved ones on a machine, for example. We need to make decisions for our own - we don't need the government and/or the Right telling us what is what. See the Terri Schiavo case. (resource links)
Gun Control: This is a right to choose issue as well, despite being quite different on the surface from Abortion or Euthanasia.
NOTE: I am not, at this point in time, the owner of a 'real' firearm, so I don't have a 'dog in this fight' so to speak. I view MOST 'gun control' concern as people wanting to limit access to handguns and limit access to automated guns/machine gun, and/or parts to make legal guns into automated guns).
Like many on the Left, I am NOT comfortable with people owning machine guns, BUT I am likewise certain that the vast majority of people who own such things are 'responsible'.
In short, controlling and limiting intentional criminal activity is like limiting stupidity - I don't believe much can be done without all of our rights being compromised.
Most proponents of gun ownership begin by talking about responsibility. Guns are power and are inherently tools that require great responsibility because the irresponsible uses are deadly and tragic. Particular to this essay, guns are used for self-defense.
I believe we have the right to defend ourselves against clear and present dangers just as I believe I have the right to make decisions for my family or that a woman has the right to make her own choices for her own health. Ergo - this choice provides us with power and with that power comes profound responsibility. While we are responsible with that power we deserve to have the choice.
The US Constitution protects our power
Now, we all know the right does not SEEM to be in favor of any sort of gun control, and that it seems rather odd to include 'gun control' under the rubric of what is clearly the Right's War on our Personal Choice. I think we mostly hear about this from "the Left' but my gut tells me if and when the framework can be generated, the Right will be on gun owners as well. (No, I have no tangible proof - it's a gut feeling stemming from their embrace of the PATRIOT Act.)
I think the relative quiet about gun control from the Right stems from the 2nd Amendment, and something I have had described to me as a 'tangible' right. We have had most of our rights limited over the past few decades as various forces have sought to limit the power the US COnstitutioon specifically set aside for us.
The war on drugs, brought to you by Republicans, mainly, was damaging the 1st, 4th, 9th, and 10th amendment long before the PATRIOT Act and the Bush Administration. We saw further erosion of the 1st and 4th Amendments in particular during that time and it really hasn't stopped.
The Second amendment doesn't appear to have a scratch on it because either one can touch one's gun or one can't. Pretty much either-or.
But 1st Amendment rights to free speech were eroded, the right to freedom of assembly has literally been under siege since Bush was placed in office by the Supreme Court. I don't have time to recount the litany of abuses we had with regards to police limiting our rights to assemble and protest and that continues right up to today, even under a more progressive president.
Our 4th Amendment rights have been under siege with the war on drugs but at this point in time most Americans tolerate the abuses because "they don't have anything to hide". They are very comfortable with peeing in a cup at somebody's request, for the lowliest of jobs. It's a massive success in the Right's war on your personal choice.
In short, people don't really notice the limits of those rights but a gun is a physical thing - if it is taken away your right to it is gone and people notice. So there isn't much done about it right now.
Nobody likes irresponsibility
Guns also highlight the tragic consequences of irresponsibility. Most of the lefties I know who want to somehow 'control' handguns cite the number of accidental deaths we have around the country, particularly when a child is wounded or killed accidentally. They found dad's handgun in a desk drawer they 'weren't supposed' to get into.
I had a 6 year old child referred to me years ago because he was playing in an abandoned apartment (yeah, problem #1) and found an abandoned gun (problem #2) and tried to take it to school (problem # 3). Nobody got hurt in that event, but how much of that was due to luck? Mom intervened about the gun but she was also grossly negligent to be allowing a 6 year old to be playing in a dangerous apartment complex unsupervised. I could write a chapter in a book about that family.
Yes, this is grossly over-simplified; it's an essay on rights and the ability to choose, not my doctoral dissertation and I don't want to digress too far from my main point.
And absolutely there are plenty of people who can't or won't be responsible and this is why we have laws regulating some of our choices and conduct, but to return to the point of all this, the Right has a veritable jihad against our power as people, not just the ever-more-obvious war on women. The war on women is just one major front.
It's a war on choice
They want to limit our power, they want to limit choices all the while complaining that this, that, or the other is "irresponsible'.
They manage to control the framing of most of these arguments and pretty much everybody falls in with it and allows them to do so.
Using the term "anti-choice' is a step towards smashing their control over the framing of these debates and is a way to push back against their plan to shackle us like slaves in the near future: slaves have no choices; citizens do.
Please use the term "Anti-Choice" as much as possible where it fits.