Planned Parenthood abandons term “pro-choice”
Pro-lifers have always disdained the term “pro-choice,” because it is intentionally ambiguous. It lets abortion supporters off the hook.
Now, apparently even “pro-choice” has become radioactive.
On January 9, with carefully controlled fanfare (no press release, hand-picked reporters), Planned Parenthood announced it was abandoning the term “pro-choice.” From Buzz Feed:
“Pro-choice” isn’t as misleading, but it doesn’t have the same strong ring to it as “pro-life,” either. Planned Parenthood Executive Vice President Dawn Laguens spoke about the problematic use of “choice” at a press briefing Wednesday, explaining how women once had way fewer choices than they do today. Now, she said, maybe “‘choice’ as word sounds frivolous.”
“Pro-choice” has certainly been taking more and more of a beating in polls. This year a record low 41% of Americans said they considered themselves “pro-choice” in Gallup’s annual survey.
This is not necessarily because people are abandoning abortion support, says PP. It is because people are confused about the terminology. Explains Jezebel:
When Planned Parenthood polled Americans to figure out how they felt about the labels, the results were confusing, because people found the labels confusing: for example, in one 2012 poll, 35% of voters who identified as pro-life also said they didn’t think Roe v. Wade should be overturned. In another, 12% of online survey takers said they were both pro-life and pro-choice, while another 12% didn’t want to use those terms, and 40% said “it depends on the situation” when asked about their moral opinions on abortion.
Actually, some pro-lifers have been drawing a similar conclusion, as I’ve mentioned before.
To clarify terms and also keep abortion in the spotlight, “we are moving away from using ‘pro-life’ to ‘anti-abortion’ or ‘abortion abolitionist,'” wrote Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, to me in an email.
“They don’t want the word abortion to be used, and we want to keep putting it in their face,” added Hawkins. “Anti-drunk driving groups aren’t pro-sober driver groups. Anti-smoking groups aren’t pro-clean air groups.” (Also read this new manifesto by Operation Rescue’s Troy Newman and Cheryl Sullenger.)
But as elements of the pro-life movement aim for more specificity, PP will aim for even less, trying to reshift an already shifty debate away from its prized morally relativist term, which, thanks to pro-life efforts is no longer relativist but negative, to morally relativist dialogue.
“And so Planned Parenthood’s newest messaging will be moving away from the language of choice,” announced Buzz Feed, adding:
Rather than selecting a new term to replace “pro-choice,” Planned Parenthood hopes to move beyond such terms entirely and present abortion as something too complicated to be divided into two sides. A soon-to-be-released Planned Parenthood video takes this new approach, casting labels like pro-life and pro-choice as limiting and abortion as a complex and personal decision. “We just don’t know a woman’s specific situation,” says the ad (not yet online). “We’re not in her shoes.”
More from Jezebel:
Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards… was also in attendance to help introduce the organization’s upcoming advertising campaign, which will highlight how complex and personal the decision to have an abortion can be with taglines such as “Only you know what it’s like to walk in your shoes” and “Decisions about reproductive health are personal. You can help keep them that way.”
Back to Buzz Feed:
Richards noted that a nuanced statement about women making their own decisions isn’t exactly bumper-sticker ready. Still, she argued that talking about abortion in this way has allowed the group to reach people who don’t necessarily consider themselves pro-choice: “It’s an opportunity to talk to an enormous number of people we haven’t been talking to as much as we should.”
To be sure, this move is both a political and a business decision on PP’s part as well as an attempt to mitigate damaging polls.
But note who is PP targeting in particular. Minorities. Read the fine print in both these graphs – “African American and Hispanic oversamples”…
Pro-lifers may be tempted to scoff at PP’s new strategy. It does indeed reflect a victory on our part. We have made the term “pro-choice” synonymous with “pro-abortion.”
This also means that despite the other side’s best efforts there has been no change in public opinion in the past 40 years, when abortion proponents first scrambled to counter “pro-life” with an “anything-but-abortion” phrase. The fact is people still don’t like abortion.
And I do wonder whether PP brought other abortion groups in on its pretty monumental new strategy or went rogue.
Such a decision must makes things uncomfortable for NARAL Pro-Choice America, for instance, which just announced its annual “Blog for Choice Day.”
Nevertheless, with its enormous PR operation and financial means to focus test new phraseology and ad campaigns to diabolical perfection, PP remains a dangerous abortion advocate.
[HT: KH; top image via Jezebel
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Whatever they call it, a human being still dies. We won’t let them “nuance” their way out of that fact.
The positions are pro-legal abortion and pro-outlawed abortion.
There are a million choices to which no controversy is attached.
No one is really against life which is why people will say, “I’m pro-life and pro-choice.” “Pro-life” also inevitably leads to discussions about the death penalty, euthanasia, etc.
There are 3 million unplanned pregnancies in America each year, half of which end in abortion. This is a crying shame.
I totally understand the logic here, but it sort of presents another problem as well. If we self-describe as anti-abortion (a label I am fine with), doesn’t it give the purveyors of death a free pass on embryo-destructive research, euthanasia, abortifacient birth control (maybe), IVF, etc., all of which take lives?
The problem with “anti-abortion” is that it might appear somewhat arbitary to oppose one form of killing innocent people. The beauty of “pro-life” and the language of the personhood movement is that it focuses less on specific techniques that change from decade to decade and restores the focus on the inalienable right to life that all human beings should enjoy.
I’m seeing abortion advocates use the phrase, “Pro-choice IS pro-life.” This reveals an abandonment of pro-choice and an attempt to co-op and confuse with pro-life.
Pro-life refers to those who believe life has infinite value including the preborn, the handicapped, and the elderly. Anti-abortion is too small. And as I said before, people who kill abortion doctors are anti-abortion, too.
Thanks for keeping on top of what is going on out there. It is important to know who the enemy is and what they are doing. Their strategy to present abortion as something ‘too complicated’ to be divided into two sides and is a ‘complex and personal decision’ sounds to me like PP wants to ‘confuse’ and be the ‘whisper of reason’ in the ears of scared and hurting women, a common tactic used by Satan to deceive.
@ Steve and Cranky: The fact is that people might strongly support banning abortion but not have your same positions on other issues. Someone might believe girls and women should be legally forbidden from abortion but believe euthanasia is necessary to release severely ill people from their suffering. Many people believe abortion should be banned and support the death penalty. Many people who want abortion banned might favor contraception.
The issue is the legality or illegality of abortion. Other issues are other issues.
Is it just me or is Denise actually making sense on this one?
I don’t care how they want to market themselves and brand their actions, the fact is they are pro-abortionists. They’re abandoning “choice” because they know it’s not really choice they champion, but abortion.
DeniseNoe, that is where we disagree. Unless we affirm the unalienable right to life of every human being, it is completely arbitrary to grant it to some and deny it to others. And the notion that we can arbitrarily pick and choose among universal truths is the foundation of the culture of death that has created the abortion crisis in the first place.
Any among us who affirm the human dignity and right to life of the fetus while denying them to the “severely ill” will be correctly recognized as hypocrites. And this hypocrisy will be the undoing of the movement.
…”Planned Parenthood hopes to move beyond such terms entirely and present abortion as something too complicated to be divided into two sides.”
No matter how fine the ‘dead babies r us’ mob dices and slices the mesage, the end result is a dismemberd and discarded defensless human being.
I like the term pro-life because it means that you care (or should care) about people AFTER they’re born, too.
Whatever we call it, abortion hurts women.
PP’s new campaign will try to insist that abortion helps women, and that PP helps women, and anything that interferes with abortion or PP’s operations will end up hurting women.
Our job is to keep publicizing how much abortion hurts women. It is also important to show that PP exploits women in need, and doesn’t help taxpayers either.
Into this story, we can share how much genuine help is available for women — often at no cost to taxpayers, due to the loving contributions of pro-lifers and various Christian charities. Government aid is also available.
And when women know who really cares for them and their well-being, the lives of children will also be saved.
Why don’t they just call themselves what they REALLY are:
Pro-DEAD BABY ? (Of course they won’t)
They SHOULD call themselves pro-SELF…that’s pretty accurate, too.
I kinda like Ken’s portrayal of ‘dead babies r us’ to describe the ‘other-side’ on abortion. We do get into difficulty though, when we try to widen the meaning of this phrase to include euthanasia (those not-innocent). To say: ‘dead _____ r us’ makes an unclear distinction between death =\= LIFE .
Great discussion folks. It is encouraging to know the PP is having to begin a new market strategy. It tells me they are running scared. If basic civil rights were given a child at conception, we would immediatly see a huge reduction in unwanted pregnancies because people would be forced to be careful. As long as we live in a culture that denies human life at conception we are going to have a demand for abortion. Teaching the truth about it is absolutely essential and the best way to elighten people to understand why we need to protect the life of the unborn
Until we decide to agree that human life is precious at every point on its continuum, and worthy of our protection, the confusion will not go away, and those who seek the death (non-existence) of others (especially “minorities”) will always have the upper hand in “debates” or “public discourse”…
…after all, they are only looking out for “everyone’s quality of life”…
Culture of Life = reproductively-open because of others-orientated self-giving life
Culture of Sterility = reproductively-limited because of self-orientated materialistic life
It’s not just what ya do it’s how ya do it and why.
You could believe abortion should be banned but support the death penalty because you believe it is possible to forfeit that right through one’s own actions. Bathsheba Spooner begged to be spared “until I shall be delivered” of her pregnancy. She accepted that she had forfeited her life through murder but wrote that what she carried was “innocent of the faults of her who bears it.”
You could believe abortion should be banned but believe that people who are extremely sick and in terrible pain have a right to be released from their pain even if it means killing them. You could also believe that those who are unconscious and can’t regain consciousness should be allowed to die, seeing their situation as quite different from that of the embryo or fetus, most of whom only require the continued use of the pregnant female’s body to ACHIEVE consciousness in the future.
You could completely support PREVENTING pregnancy through artificial means but oppose allowing girls and women to terminate pregnancies before carrying to term.
Outlawing abortion just doesn’t AUTOMATICALLY and LOGICALLY link to other issues.
Steve, I’m with you all the way. We must be pro-life, whole-life, all human life from conception to natural death. I’d hate to see us abandon the pro-life label altogether. I’m certainly an abortion abolitionist, though!
The death penalty is something I have wrestled with for years. Yet I am forced to admit that even there, God must be allowed to be God, and if we can protect society without executing anyone, then we must do so.
Denise,
Do you ever know how to press-the-wrong-buttons? I have a genetic (and so-far incurable) disease called Friedreich’s Ataxia. In many ways it mimes the worst expression of multiple sclerosis. So what should I do with my life? Should I wait and be delivered from my cruel existence? When people get very sick, should they go to hospitals and find relief-from-their-burden? IF you do-not-kill-me are you not refusing me compassion?
Are law-suits for wrongful-birth acceptable to you?
Faulty logic: just because a decision is private & personal does not mean that it is ok, or that the government should always allow it. Rape is a “private, personal decision.” Rape is not ok, and the government should be “involved” in that decision: outlawing it & enforcing the law when it happens. The rapist’s private, personal decision does not supercede the rights of his victim; like a mother’s private, personal decision does not supercede the rights of her preborn child.
Denise, if you want to suggest that there are innocent people that do not have an unalienable right to life, then I suppose that’s your prerogative. But it’s a losing strategy and one that places you on the margins of the anti-abortion movement.
Most of us in this movement focus on abortion because it’s so prevelant. But if tomorrow the Supreme Court legalized drowning as a form of killing, we would recognize an immediate link to abortion, abortifacient birth control, euthanasia, embryo-destructive research, etc. because all of these practices kill innocent human beings.
The right-to-LIFE as outlined in the constitution places no qualifiers on ‘life’. All people are deemed to be ‘worthy-of-life’ and there IS-NO-RIGHT TO KILL (or be killed). This is why abortion laws are bogus-laws, as are euthanasia.
We have mixed in comfort as if it was a right …. COMFORT = LACK-OF-PAIN.
too complicated?
It doesn’t get any simpler than legally killing those weaker than yourself.
@John
Uh that is not what i got from her post at all.
John McDonell says:
January 11, 2013 at 12:43 pm
Denise, Do you ever know how to press-the-wrong-buttons? I have a genetic (and so-far incurable) disease called Friedreich’s Ataxia. In many ways it mimes the worst expression of multiple sclerosis. So what should I do with my life? Should I wait and be delivered from my cruel existence? When people get very sick, should they go to hospitals and find relief-from-their-burden? IF you do-not-kill-me are you not refusing me compassion?
(Denise) I am severely handicapped and have been since I was 14 years old. I’m unable to support myself due to my disability. I am also a chronic pain sufferer.
However, I have an extremely strong will to live. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.
The point I’m making is that what some people choose to call “life” issues aren’t automatically connected. I’m not saying I support euthanasia or the death penalty or anything else. I’m saying you COULD favor the death penalty and/or euthanasia and support banning abortion without any logical inconsistency.
Euthanasia frequently involves people who are in so much physical pain that they want to die. That doesn’t mean we should help them die or even allow them to die. However, a person who supports allowing such a sufferer to die or even helping that sick person die isn’t necessarily inconsistent in demanding pregnant girls and women carry to term. Such a position is defensible. I’m not saying it is my position or that anyone should take that position.
For many years, the US had an active death penalty and laws forbidding abortion. The reasoning was that certain criminals had forfeited their lives through their crimes while the embryo or fetus had not.
John McDonell says:
January 11, 2013 at 1:05 pm
The right-to-LIFE as outlined in the constitution places no qualifiers on ‘life’. All people are deemed to be ‘worthy-of-life’ and there IS-NO-RIGHT TO KILL (or be killed). This is why abortion laws are bogus-laws, as are euthanasia. We have mixed in comfort as if it was a right …. COMFORT = LACK-OF-PAIN.
(Denise) I’m not arguing for euthanasia or assisted suicide. If you see abortion and euthanasia as similarly evil, you may well oppose them with equal vigor.
All I’m trying to point out is that there is no NECESSARY connection. Someone might believe life is so precious that it must be saved even if a person is in the most horrible imaginable physical pain and will continue to be so for life. This is an arguable position. But it is not NECESSARY to have this position to hold an anti-abortion position. The vast majority of embryos and fetuses aborted are perfectly healthy. One could support euthanasia while believing that the healthy unborn are entitled to the use of the female body that is their natural habitat.
You can call it whatever you want. Try and make it sound all pleasant and nice. But it is still MURDER OF UNBORN CHILDREN.
“ABORTION”, “choice” or a “woman’s reproductive rights” are all euphemisms for MURDER.
And ABORTION IS MURDER. PERIOD.
And don’t give me any ridiculous hypotheticals either. Abortion is MURDER. PERIOD!
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are LIFE, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” – Declaration of Independence
Notice that word LIFE there? Abortion is MURDER. PERIOD.
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, AND SECURE THE BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY FOR OURSELVES AND OUR POSTERITY, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” – U.S. Constitution
“AND SECURE THE BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY FOR OURSELVES AND OUR POSTERITY”
One of those “blessings” is LIBERTY, the same Liberty that comes after LIFER in the Declaration of Independence.
And who are these blessings for: “Ourselves and OUR POSTERITY!” Posterity as in OUR CHILDREN!
You can’t have LIFE and LIBERTY if you are MURDERED before even being born.
ABORTION IS MURDER. PERIOD!
Maybe we should just toss aside “pro” and “anti” and go along with using “choice”.
We say “Choose life!” They say “Choose death!”
Cecile Richards….. “Only you know what it’s like to walk in your shoes”
That kind of talking point can rationalize a whole lot of evil.
Prayer and fasting is needed.
Lord help us all.
Anti-abortion describes people who oppose abortion. Pro-life describes the people who do something about it.
Hi Denise,
I do appreciate where you are coming from and the way you ‘argue’. They stem from the same rationale that Reality uses. If a human being is a one-of-a-kind, solid, definable entity, then what you have written is true. However, because we ‘equally’ share a humanity that is common to us both, we are a unity before we are individuals. Arguing that humanity is solely a collection of individuals and their ideas, removes any notion of commonality of goals (rights) and purpose {Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness}. We are in this together, not as a random mob, but as a civil society.
Jill Stanek has written that she’s offended by attempts to link abortion and the death penalty because many people who strongly support banning abortion also support executions. A woman representing an organization working to criminalize abortion said, “We don’t have a position on the death penalty.” The fact is that the death penalty is extremely divisive among people who support outlawing abortion because many of them are conservatives who want to be “tough on crime” and see the death penalty as part of that.
I have a brother who strongly supports criminalizing abortion. He writes, “Pregnancy is a normal part of the human condition. It’s how we all arrived! Doctors don’t normally remove healthy body parts.” He also supported the husband of Terri Schiavo who asked her to be, in effect, euthanized. He believes that people who are in terrible pain should be able to ask to be allowed to die and we might as well allow those in vegetative states to die. You don’t have to agree with his views but they aren’t logically inconsistent. The situations of people who are candidates for euthanasia or assisted suicide and the situation of a healthy embryo or fetus that might die because the pregnant woman is unwilling to carry are quite different.
Perhaps anti-choicers could be termed ‘restrictors’ or ‘repressors’. Maybe plain old ‘social controllers’.
Pro-choicers could use terms like ‘liberators’ or ‘freedom fighters’. Maybe even ‘supporters of democracy’.
John, I read an interesting statement afew days ago. It said that being a market economy is fine and dandy, being a market society, not so.
Hey, Reality’s on to something there.
I mean, the preborn child is already considered an “oppressor” and “parasite.” Why not just trek all the way down the Orwellian path?
“Liberators” from what? The horrid oppression of pregnancy and childbirth? Ok…
I was talking about anti-choicers, not fetuses Kel.
Liberators from the patriarchal power structures and the misguided adherents of its inherently misogynistic paradigm.
Hi,
ty Reality for the quote. In its simplest meaning, a market economy ‘buys & sells’. A market-society sells itself (its soul). Are we not slaves to wealth; convenience; being-#1; being-in-control; etc?
should we not ‘B’ …. as in ‘B-American’ …. B- courageous; B-free; B-alive (grow to laugh, dance and sing).
Right, Reality. Because you know we’re all just here because we want to control women. None of us are here because…for instance….they were horrified by the thought of a close family member being killed by abortion. Nope. It’s gotta be all about controlling teh wittoo wimminz, of course. Nevermind most of us ARE women. Pay no attention to that MAN behind the Pro-Abortion curtain. Who -is- that man behind the Pro-Abortion curtain, anyway? Is it the serial rapist in Colorado who worked for a big wheel in the DNC there who was finally caught after assaulting an abortion opponent? Could it be the newly-arrested former head of an influential pro-abortion group who was trying to sexually assault a 12 year old girl? Hey…aren’t YOU a man, Reality?
So women are victims of patriarchal oppression when denied the “right” to an abortion even though that would hold them to the exact same standards that we hold men to? After all, men who consent to sex consent to 18+ years of mandatory child support, so why shouldn’t women who consent to sex consent to 9 months gestation? Right now our liberal abortion laws treat women like children who are incapable of taking responsibility and being held accountable for their own actions, while our laws force men to take accountablity. Furthermore, giving up your parental rights to avoid paying child support is not an option, since you have to go before a judge for that and the case is always decided on the child’s best interest. If the judge knows or suspects that the only or primary reason you are giving up your parental rights is to avoid paying child support, the judge will not let you do so.
It is deeply and most offensively misogynistic to give women the message that they should use thier reproductive power to destroy innocent girl and boy fetuses.
How utterly patriarchial of you.
As far as terms go, what about
pro violent death of girl and boy fetuses? Too many syllables?
“Hey…aren’t YOU a man, Reality?” – yep, just like your father, your partner and your son :-)
“Right now our liberal abortion laws treat women like children who are incapable of taking responsibility and being held accountable for their own actions’ – I see the opposite. It is the acts, laws and control mechanisms yearned for by the patriarchy which are designed to institute what is considered ‘best for women’ (meaning how they want ‘their women’ to be) rather than allowing them choice.
“pro violent death of girl and boy fetuses? Too many syllables?” – hm, I’m sure at least some anti-choicers could cope.
Personally I think the term ‘Planned Parenthood’ is very negative. Should call it ‘Planned Killing’.
– yep, just like your father, your partner and your son
Not *just* like. I’m sure at least that my son and partner are younger than you are. Oh, and also they’re not advocating legal abortion which helps rapists and pedophiles hide the evidence of their crimes and continue abusing women. Because patriarchy.
Had an insight into a decades-old problem with most American friends. This began decades ago while attending school. Some fellows who were super-friendly and cordial suddenly shifted as soon as they crossed ‘the border’. We Canadians couldn’t figure it out. Had a shift happened? YES. But we couldn’t see!
DIFFERENCE = being AN American rather than ‘being American’.
Glad to see PP having to move to even more confusing marketing strategies. :) Though, it’s at the heart of what they do anyway: Deception.
As for terms, I don’t see why we can’t be both. I’m very proudly anti-abortion, an abortion abolitionist, and pro-life. I think war is terrible, unnecessary deaths lamentable, and positively livid about the worm “doctor” who advised my grandma to seek “end of life options” so as not to be a “burden on [her] family.” Disgusting! She wants to live to see her first great grand-baby, among other things. :)
Our flippancy about life as a culture is upsetting (all life – including animals). However, I believe that an excellent way to *start* waking people up to these other issues is abortion. It’s already an uncomfortable topic. And if we can get people to see that the tiny beings in women’s bellies are lives, maybe they’ll start thinking, hey, if this is life is precious, all life is precious.
Anyway, I’ll take all the terms. I’m not picky.
“I’m sure at least that my son and partner are younger than you are” – me too. Maybe once they get some more life experience they’ll see things more clearly.
And yes, they’ll come to see that being against womens’ freedom is “Because patriarchy”.
Hahahahah Reality. Oh my gosh. Patriarchy! You’ve got to be kidding me.
First, abortion is the ultimate tool for patriarchy. And if you’re blinding yourself to that, you’re a tool for the patriarchy as well.
Second, as X said, a lot of us here are women and, not only that, but feminists. I know I am. I’m all for equal rights for women. I just don’t believe women should be abused by abortion, and that my generation and my child’s generation should be slaughtered for the crime of being inconvenient.
Maybe once they get some more life experience they’ll see things more clearly.
I freakin’ very much doubt it! The reasons we’re all Pro-Life in the first place is BECAUSE our life experiences have taught us that it’s wrong to kill and have our children killed-we’ve learned through loss and heartache that abortion shouldn’t be legal and everyone deserves the basic right to live.
And yes, they’ll come to see that being against womens’ freedom is “Because patriarchy”
Okay…and when will *I* have that revelation, Reality? When will it happen for me, when the person who would’ve benefited MOST from having my daughter killed in an abortion would’ve been her loser sperm-donor who would’ve been free to continue using me however he wanted with no responsibility, and the one killed by the abortion would’ve been A GIRL whose MOTHER also would’ve been harmed? Please, please, please, PLEASE explain to me how abortion is anything other than a tool of the patriarchy. PLEASE.
Jill,
…excuse me, I must clarify my post from January 11, 2013 at 11:40 am…
It is correct to not equate being against…
1) the murder of children either before or after they are born by coercion of the populace to think otherwise [abortion]…
2) the murder of born people who are elderly, disabled from birth or other event (disease, accident, war, etc.) by coercion of the populace to think that if the people are not “contributors to society”, they lack “quality of life”, or their conditions are otherwise “incompatible with life” (what does that mean?), they need not exist [euthanasia]…
3) the disposal/elimination [murder] of poor people by coercion of the populace to believe that their presence breeds more poverty, misery, and presents dangers to those not sharing their status in life as long as they live [you know which organizations export the former two]…
…with considerations about the legally prescribed death penalty. The only connection is where that sentence is handed down and carried out unjustly [against an innocent person]. And it is that unjust violence against the innocent that is so wicked.
I must conclude that those who persist in promoting the murder of humans (not the death penalty—and by the way, this action of the state against offenders also has a disproportionate number of minorities—I wonder why? Sounds familiar…) are really carrying out the following agenda (bold emphasis mine):
“I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; and consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics. He is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do. For myself, as no doubt for most of my friends, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom. The supporters of this system claimed that it embodied the meaning – the Christian meaning, they insisted – of the world. There was one admirably simple method of confuting these people and justifying ourselves in our erotic revolt: we would deny that the world had any meaning whatever.”
? Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means: An Inquiry into the Nature of Ideals and into the Methods Employed for Their Realization
Retrieved 11 January 2013 from http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/3220076-ends-and-means-an-inquiry-into-the-nature-of-ideals-and-into-the-method
From where I stand, those against the murder of humans, whatever form it takes, are against those who refuse to acknowledge that this is what they want because it feeds their desire to “do as [they want] to do”.
My nine-year-old asked me today, “why do they call it Planned Parenthood when no one gets to be a parent? It’s dishonest”.
So I’m saying, PP should lead by example, and change their own brand name before asking abortion supporters to change their terminology.
Waiting…
Mary Ann says:
January 11, 2013 at 10:33 pm
My nine-year-old asked me today, “why do they call it Planned Parenthood when no one gets to be a parent? It’s dishonest”.
(Denise) You have to be able to NOT get pregnant when you don’t want to in order to PLAN the pregnancy that you DO want.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with planning not to become a parent or planning to become a parent LATER than the present. We can debate about the mechanisms of planning but there is nothing wrong with deciding whether or when to become pregnant.
…one last word on this thread…
…for what it is worth, everyone seeing this whose life is/may become difficult, please don’t give up. You are valuable all by yourself. You need to be alive, here, on the earth, with us. We need you. We love you, even if we have a peculiar way of showing it. God loves you, too, and i felt that this needed to be said, regardless of what you think or how you express it.
Please remember, God loves you.
There truly is no low these murders won’t stoop to. They can change their terminology, their logo, their name it doesn’t matter the fact remains they are still in the ABORTION industry and what they should really say is they are PRO-MURDER. A rose by any other name people. I can call a cat a dog but that doesn’t make it one.
http://voiceforhope.blogspot.com/
“Only you know what it’s like to walk in your shoes.”
Another lie from the pit of Hell. Another attempt to cut women off from their primary support groups.
Translation: “We’re the only ones who understand you, and are the only ones who can make this problem go away.”
What we are witnessing are human predators circling women in crisis and salivating at the prospect of ripping the child from her womb. Chilling.
The above comment by Gerard Nadal is just one the many, many, hateful, insulting, and slandering posts made in this thread in blatant violation of the supposed commenting rules. It’s odd that people who claim to be acting out of love for all human beings are full of such hate, and it suggests that trying to have an actual conversation is futile. It also brings up the question of why Jill bothered posting those rules if she’s not going to enforce them.
And JennJ’s “I can call a cat a dog but that doesn’t make it one” sure is hypocritical. You can call an embryo a “human being” but that doesn’t make it one. You “pro-lifers” are the ones that are trying to redefine words. Words mean what the consensus of speakers says they mean, and the consensus of English speakers is that abortion is not murder.
We redefine words, eh? Look up “human embryo” and you’ll see that it’s a lot more valuable than a “human hangnail.”
hypocritical. You can call an embryo a “human being” but that doesn’t make it one. You “pro-lifers” are the ones that are trying to redefine words. Words mean what the consensus of speakers says they mean, and the consensus of English speakers is that abortion is not murder.
That’s a laugh riot, considering the definition of “human being” is simply “a member of the species homo sapiens sapiens”, in which gestating humans very clearly included. No one is trying to “redefine” words. We’re trying to get others to acknowledge already-established, factual definitions, instead of the touchy-feelies of a consensus. You’d be surprised at some of the definitions of a consensus of citizens at any given time in any given place. I’d start with America in the 1700’s/1800’s. Make sure you stop off at 1930’s Germany, too.