Note: I'm reposting this comment from mcjoan's diary as my own diary because of the length and I want to spark more discussion on this issue.
The hot trend of finding better ways to control the language of debate on issues important to us, such as abortion, often leads to calls to "don't fall into their frame", or something like that.
But when have the two sides on this divisive issue ever talked in the same frame?
On our side, proponents basically say: "Our bodies, our rights...our bodies, our rights!"
The other side says "Unborn life is human life; abortion is murder...unborn life is human life; abortion is murder."
This diary, like many here before it, such as lorraine's recent and well-received diary, are well written and speak well to our rallying point.
But we fail again and again to refute the other side's core argument, and if all we do is set the right of a woman to control her body against the right of an unborn human to live, we will continue to lose ground.
So here is a case where we do have to engage the other side's language to force people to think through the implications of that argument.
I've done this most often in the form of "what would you do?" hypothetical scenarios:
First, if while walking alone by a river, you found two people drowning, an adult mother and her small child, and you could only rescue one of them, who would it be?
Second, if a pregnant woman, say in her second trimester, was rushed unconscious to the ER, and a decision had to be made whether to save the mother's life or that of the unborn fetus, which would be the right decision. Imagine that woman is your wife, daughter or sister and you've been asked to make that snap decision.
I've been asking this question of people who seem to start from the axiom that a fetus = baby and abortion = murder.
With virtually no exceptions, people answer the child on the first question, and the mother on the second. This demonstrates that a fetus is NOT equal to a baby and hence, not a murder.
I'm not suggesting that my example argument is instant persuasion, but it gets people thinking and realizing that there is a distinction. Once they make that distinction, it's easier to assert that in a morally grey area, the mother, not the state, should make the decision.
Sometimes you do need to engage the opposition's "frame", not to surrender to it, but to destroy it. If we fail to do so on abortion, we will lose the public debate and women will lose more control over their bodies.