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Comment by petercooper | Hacker News Reader

This immediately made me think of abortion and the terms pro-life and pro-choice. I am both pro-life and pro-choice by the literal meanings, but many in the "pro-life" and "pro-choice" camps seem to use their terminology to paint the other side as bad (i.e. the opposite side is "anti-life" or "anti-choice" by default, even though that's not necessarily true).

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Is there a situation where the belief that abortion should be illegal does not oppose a woman's ability to choose abortion? Of course the central premise of opposition to abortion is not (usually) opposition to choice, but "anti-choice" isn't technically an invalid characterization.

I think the point is that I'm pro-life, I'm just "proer"-choice.

Obviously situations where the mother's life is in danger are kind of a gray area, but I think you could comfortably be "proer"-life and oppose the choice in non-life-threatening situations. Not that I agree, but that opinion wouldn't be "anti-choice".

That makes you solidly pro choice.

It's the same sort of weasel words that Creationists use to confuse Christians who can accept science but now think it runs counter to the idea of "God's Creation".

My point is that I'm also pro-life.

And most of the pro-life positions people take are also pro-choice, just to a lesser extent than they are pro-life.

Choosing what you perceive to be the lesser of two evils doesn't make you pro-evil; choosing what you perceive to be the greater of two goods doesn't make you anti-{life,choice}.

EDIT: To further clarify, I'm not at all confused as to what camp I'm in. By standard definitions, I'm definitely pro-choice. The point I'm making is that the standard definitions are not hugely useful.

The central premise of opposition to abortion is whether the baby gets a choice. It's not "anti-choice", it's insisting that everyone involved have a fair say in the matter.

That's clever, but I'm guessing (maybe wrongly) that you'd wan't that baby raised in a belief system that says it will go to hell if it commits suicide. There's still no choice of whether or not to live. That's probably a good thing, but it's still technically opposed to choice.

Of course there's a choice then. Strongly influenced perhaps, but even the most devout believer can choose to sin or not. If he's dead by another's choice, he doesn't have any choice.

Not really because it's fairly obvious that the baby has no ability to say anything. In fact, most abortion opponents are also "parental rights" supporters, which means they're actively opposed to kids having any kind of fair say in anything even when they are old enough to do so: http://pamshouseblend.firedoglake.com/2011/10/20/religious-r...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_fallacy

To your first question, that sounds like a tricky one logically.

In my simultaneous pro-life and pro-choice belief, I don't believe abortion should be illegal. However, it shouldn't be trivial and easy to do and should require medical oversight and counselling (non-extensive, non-judgmental, and non-coercive). That is to say, any woman should have the right but it must be a considered, reasonable choice (a bit like required for gender reassignment, euthanasia, or any number of significant medical decisions).

It made me think of C++.

I prefer to use the term 'anti-choice' for the other side.

I prefer to use the term 'anti-life' for the other side.

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