"Choice Language": Taking a big risk

"Choice Language": Taking a big risk



I've been troubled by this article since I first saw it spreading through the blogosphere a few days ago. I feel that's it's pretty damn presumptuous for a man to talk about choice but I'll go out on a limb and do it anyway.





"As long as I can remember, the tone of the liberal message on abortion has been defiant, sometimes even celebratory. It's an attitude that reflects the victory of legal abortion over back-alley dangers three decades ago -- a success that many who remember it still experience with deep emotion...



Still, for those of us who came after Roe v. Wade, there is a significantly different reality. The context has changed. Back alleys and coat hangers are not part of our visceral memory. Liberalism's vocabulary of 'rights' when it comes to abortion rings a little hollow. It's constitutional, intellectual -- and not nuanced enough to absorb the emotional or even legal complexity..."



This is an extremely risky road to go down. You can't defend a freedom in a half-assed, apologetic way. You can't gove a rhetorical inch, because the moment you do you start to imply that choice is Bad. And that implication is all the anti-choicers need to get their feet in the door, to pursue their assault on this extremely fundamental freedom under the guise of fetus-worship.



I used to all-but-ban this topic from my speech classes because persuasion on this subject is impossible. Even neutral language is impossible. Either you believe a zygote is a human being or you don't. I don't and we shouldn't kowtow to those that do.