LINGUISTIquips

It occurred to me the other day: why is it called “pro-life” and “pro-choice?”

I’m putting myself in a position for some serious debate here, so let me start by making a statement: I am “pro-choice.” That being said, I’m curious as to the use of the two above terms as they relate to Pragmatics.

Let’s take a look at the first one: “Pro-life.” It sounds really nice, doesn’t it? If you say that you’re “pro-life,” you sound like someone who likes to go outside a lot and play with puppies, or perhaps has a house filled with cats and plants. The word “life,” indeed, has a wonderful connotation, and in and of itself is, possibly, one of our most treasured English words, as it pertains to our most treasured fact of humanity.

Now let’s examine briefly the other: “Pro-choice.” At first glance, this doesn’t sound bad either. “Choice” is a word commonly associated with “freedom,” in fact, and so “pro-choice” has a sort of french-revolution-y flair to it.

Or does it?

The problem here is the suffix: “pro-.” The use of “pro-” implies a “con-”, which is the opposite of whatever concept lies after the suffix. In other words, the deeper connotation of these words is thus:

• If you are not “pro-choice,” then you must be against choice (or freedom, as it were).

• If you are not “pro-life,” then you must be against life… so no more playing with puppies for you.

In fact, these words are horribly inaccurate descriptions of viewpoints on abortion. Certainly, pro-choice is not so harsh as its counterpart, but both words really do not play fair… linguistically.

For example, to be “pro-life” has implications dealing in the “abortion clinics are baby-killers” area, which one might expect, as that is the position of many who are “pro-life.” But those supporting abortion rights are not “anti-life;” rather, they disagree (on a philosophical level) that abortion is killing. Scientifically, fertilized eggs may be expelled from a would-be-mother… in fact, it is not uncommon for fertilized eggs to be expelled by a woman much in the same way that an unfertilized egg is. All that needs to happen is the egg not attach itself, and voila: from the “life-begins-at-conception” viewpoint, a good percentage of women are murderers without even knowing it.

This is what makes “pro-life” inherently inaccurate: those who are not “pro-life” do not believe that they are killing anything. Therefore, the connotation of the term (which is heard constantly in the media) unfairly demonizes those who support abortion rights.

To better illustrate this concept, let’s imagine the terms in reverse: keeping the “pro-choice” term as our “control variable,” let’s imagine a new term for “pro-life” called “anti-abortion.” Now then, look at the two next to each other:

PRO-CHOICE ANTI-ABORTION

The term on the left seems good (at a subconscious level) while the one on the right seems bad (simply because it starts with a negative prefix).

There is another problem, however: just what else would “pro-choicers” be called? After all, they aren’t actually “pro-abortion,” but rather they support the right to have an abortion, not an abortion in every case.

I suppose the closest you could come to being fair with connotations would be thus:

• Use a positive prefix with each term.

• Use an accurate descriptive word after each prefix.

In short, both “pro-choice” and “pro-life” fail pragmatically, both because of the words “choice” and “life,” respectively. Indeed, there may not be a way to designate two diametrically opposed viewpoints without giving one a more negative connotation than that of the other. The closest that I could come up with was:

ABORTION RIGHTS ADVOCATES ABORTION RIGHTS OPPONENTS

Of course, both new terms smack of American political correctness… which is never a good thing.

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