There are going to be a few posts about a conversation I had with a man, whom I’m going to call Peter, as sort of a series. He knew when I initiated the conversation that I was a women’s studies student writing a blog from a strong social constructionist perspective, largely influenced by feminisms. What that meant to him, I have no idea. People just seem to take what they know or think they know about these kinds of perspectives and relate them to the current interaction. Which is fine, we all do that all the time. I guess the point I’m trying to make is that he and I were not spiritually, religiously, academically on the same page. We read from different books entirely. The dialogue surprised me, in a good way. Our opposing sides didn’t seem to affect the conversation we held for over an hour.
The conversation that Peter and I had was so involved with what I want this blog to be about; he was honest, respectful and was bold in his responses to my (at times invasive) questions. Our relatively short conversation, I think, will be interesting if it is analyzed, questioned and deconstructed for the sake of the blog. He was at an anti-choice, pro-life, right-to-life rally downtown. He didn’t know I would be there, I just found myself approaching him and asking if I could ask him a few questions about the rally with my notebook in hand. Peter was nice and consented right away. He said the opinions he was giving were commonly held in the (Catholic) church and members of the Right to Life organization in the province. I don’t take anything he said as anyone’s official opinion but his own. So that’s a little of the back-story for this miniseries.
Language and identifying through language is important to all of us. Language is one of the best ways we have of communicating our thoughts, emotions and ideas. (I don’t just mean spoken and heard word; when I say “language” I mean for it to be inclusive: speaking, writing, hearing, reading, signing, watching, and any other means of communication that we may use to express ourselves.) If you’ve noted above, I said I met Peter at an anti-choice, pro-life, right-to-life rally downtown. This isn’t because I’m confused about the ongoing debate- I know where I stand. But each of the names says something. As always, it most likely communicates more about those saying it, rather than those who they are labelling. Perhaps the easiest way to explain this is to go through each label, putting them in conversation with each other.
Pro-choice: This is the movement that wants to have comprehensive sex education in school systems. They want kids, teens and adults to know about safe, effective and often affordable birth controls and contraceptives as well as information about sexually transmitted infections. They are trying to help prevent people from getting pregnant who do not want to get pregnant. In the event of pregnancy, the pro-choice movement wants pregnant persons to know that there are a variety of options on how to proceed, including but never limited to abortion.
Pro-choice individuals don’t like abortion and to suggest such a thing is absurd. I don’t know that I have an argument to point out just how preposterous of an idea that it. I don't know anyone who likes abortion, but if you're out there, fine, but I'm positive that is not the message of the pro-choice movement is. Rather they wish that there were adequate education and support before a pregnancy could occur. But yes, in the event of a pregnancy that is unwanted, unplanned, the result of rape, incest, and/or any set of circumstances... yes pro-choice movements think pregnant people deserve access to safe, legal and affordable abortions, should that be what they choose.
When I asked Peter about what he thought of the label “pro-choice”, he said that to him, it sounded vague about the politics behind the movement. His opinion was that the movement never wants people to know that they’re “pro-abortion”, that the term avoids the “fact” that abortion “ends life”. I get the sense that he feels the entire pro-choice perspective is selfish and deceitful, but more on that later, I promise! Regardless of the non pro-choice side, they don’t appear to have their own label for the pro-choice side, so it’s very difficult to talk about pro-choice from a pro-life/anti-choice perspective without getting completely confused among the terminology. Let’s move onto the next term, shall we?
Pro-life: is the movement that doesn’t distinguish between lives, and has an incredibly wide definition of the term “life”. Peter gave me what he thought was the official opinion of the Catholic Church and the Right to Life organization of the province: in no cases is abortion ever the spiritually and religiously acceptable option to pregnant persons- even in the case of rape and incest. The logic goes that the circumstances leading up to conception do not negate the life that is formed. Factually, scientifically that is true.
(With the term “pro-life”, whose life are we in favour of? My mind can’t help but focus on the NO ABORTIONS, NO EXCEPTIONS. That scares me a little. As if a woman hasn’t had enough control and agency taken away from her by being raped, the church is telling her she is morally obligated to host to her rapist’s cells for nine months. This is probably where it has become very apparent on how I “really” feel. And I’d apologize for my lack of discretion, but this is my blog, my rules. )
Peter and I talked about the dichotomy that seems to exist between the abortion debates, between lots of debates. Deconstructing dichotomous thinking is huge in women’s studies, and many of my courses. I sense it will be discussed in detail several times over by the time I’m done with this blog. Dichotomies are limiting- only allowing two sides to every issue is most often not giving enough people with “gray area” opinions enough credit. It doesn’t allow for compromise or understanding of any kind between two groups. Peter and I agreed on one thing, that there was never much real, productive communication between two (and certainly not the only two) sides of the abortion debate. I think he likes it that way. It certainly makes believing one’s own opinion easier, if there’s never interaction between sides; one never has to doubt their group’s opinions. He thinks of the world as black and white, right and wrong, this or that, and by no means am I putting words in his mouth. There will be much more about the specifics of “right and wrong” later in the series.
And is it just me, or is this a childish way to interact with the world? Refusing to look at the world from any other angle, understanding it only within one’s own terms, never communicating with people that opinions that vary (a little or a lot) from your own? If nothing else, it makes me sad that more people aren’t constantly questioning the world around them, wondering why things are the way they are and how might we make things better? Or at least less worse.
Anti-choice: In terms of the goals, “anti-choice” is the same as “pro-life”. Read: this group doesn’t want abortion under any circumstances. The only difference is the label. From pro-life a perspective, they value “all” life from conception to natural death, thus identifying as pro-life.
Looking at the same side of the debate from another perspective, we come up with the label “anti-choice”. The anti-choice group is still the one that opposes abortion under any circumstances, but by labelling it “anti-choice”, it is apparent that the label is being given by people who believe in the right for pregnant persons to choose abortion if they want., “pro-choice”. Even if we acknowledge that these two opinions of one side of the debate co-exist, we can tell that arguments are seldom a dichotomy. There might be two sides, but within those two halves are multiple, sometime conflicting, but always interacting (either passively or actively) angles. However, there are very seldom debates that have just two major sides.
Thanks to my lack of discretion above, I think I’ve presented some of the pro-choice’s outlook on anti-choice’s opinion when I question the value of dichotomies and what they mean for our societies. Although this was supposed to be a short post, I knew I wouldn’t be able to explain these thoughts, no matter how clear they were in my head. Language is always important. It tells much about who we are from the labels we give other people, and from the identities we claim through words. Language gives us power to say what we mean where otherwise our peers would be clueless as to our outlooks of an issue. And although “pro-life”, ”anti-choice” and “right to life” all mean “we don’t find abortion to be acceptable under any circumstances”, when we question who is doing the labelling and naming, we find that there are differences in so called synonymous words.
So depending on which perspective I’m talking from, the words used to describe a group of people who don’t want any abortions ever, might just be called “People who wish to have abortion made illegal under any set of circumstances”.. How creative, I know. But in the rare moments when I’m pretending I’m not a biased, social constructionist, raging feminist, I feel like I need a term to mean “anti-choice, pro-life” groups, rather than typing both of them all the time and having to make the socially constructed difference clear every time.
Next in the series: what abortion means to kids
Well done. I look forward to the next post in this series.
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