"Choice" sounds to me like what you make between baked and mashed, when in reality these matters are life and death.

-- Lynn Harris

You do mean the life or death of the fetus, right?

I don't have a magic response for "rights," but I always refer to the "pro-life" (hardee har har) crowd as "forced childbirth", "pro-rapist's rights", or "anti-contraception." Boil it down to its essence, and that's what they want: forced childbirth no matter the circumstances. Use the frame to your advantage; call 'em what they are.

"Pro-woman," "Pro-rights," and "Pro-self" are all fine, though the lattermost would probably be a spin target.

Frankly, there's nothing wrong with "Pro-Choice," because that's exactly what we advocate - choice. We don't presume to dictate which choice a woman should make, unlike the anti-choice crowd.

The hell with them, start playing their own dirty game and slathering "anti-choice" as the epithet of choice whenever referring to them. If it's good enough for the GOP....

If you'd like a nice fat dose of the anti-choice's brand of hypocrisy, take a few minutes to read "The Only Moral Abortion is My Abortion" - http://www.womensservices.com/Information/tabid/61/Default.aspx

...I think of it as something like "Family rights trump goverment control." That way we also incorporate recent attacks on contraception, and the "pre-pregnant" movement, and breast-feeding fascism, etc...

Ok, it's not euphonious, but it at least avoids the somewhat negative term "abortion", and really gets to the heart of what this fight is about: do women have the right to control their own reproduction?

If the answer is yes, then we win. If the answer is no, then the abortion foes have to explain why the government should be telling women when and how to have children, which is hardly the position most people would want to take.

How about "pro-health"? We're talking about the emotional and physical health of the mother and the potential child as at stake in the debate.

Pro-personal autonomy?

Pro-self-determination?

Pro-privacy in medical care?

Pro-hippocratic oath?

Pro-compassion in care?

I say we adopt anti-forced birth for pro-choice and pro-forced birth for anti-choice. That way, the anti-choice people get to keep the "pro" part, and the ideology of each side is described accuratly and succintly.

I imagine it would be hard to change the label because it's been stuck for so long, but here's some slogan-ish ideas...

I'm Anti-Theocratic!

I'm Pro-Liberty!

I support Reproductive Freedom!

I'm against intrusive government!

I'm anti-forced birth!

Yeah, it's always bothered me that pro-lifers could get away with calling themselves, well, pro-lifers. That moniker is fine for people who are truly pro-life (i.e., they're also against the death penalty, they're for social justice, etc.)

Which is why I try to call them "anti-abortion groups." It's clunky (unlike pro-life) but actually accurately describes their position.

Maybe pro-choicers should take up "pro-liberty." Liberty to control our own bodies. And it's got a patriotic ring to it. Who says only The Right can wrap themselves in the flag?

...because "choice" isn't all that our opponents are targeting. If and when they succeed in scaling back women's reproductive rights with respect to abortion, you can bet your ass they're going after access to contraception next. I would imagine that they also have long-term plans to criminalize sex outside of marriage also. I really wish there was some nice catch phrase that sums up all of those things for which we are fighting, but catchy slogans and memes have always been a strength of the hardcore right-wingnuts, mostly because things are more easily summarized when your world consists of only two values: good and evil.

The anti-choicers chose pro-life as a way of turning pro-choicers into anti-lifers. Why not do the same thing back at them? Bush and his cronies are "freedom this" and "freedom that"--the war in Iraq is done in the name of freedom, we unlawfully detain prisoners in secret camps all in the name of freedom. Why not Pro-freedom? Is it too vague? I'd like to see how the anti-choicers try to make their case against freedom. We could even shorten it to "pro-free" to make it snappier, sound more proprietary.

Literally.

Pro-Freedom

Pro-Woman

Anti-American Taliban

Choosing one is hard. A quick story: worked on a statewide reproductive rights ballot campaign years ago, where we tested words. "Choice" only tested best among socially active white women in our state's wealthiest suburbs. For African-American women across economic lines, "safety" was the top by far. For middle-class and blue-collar white and Hispanic women, the word was "privacy." Ended up segmenting all the outreach materials in keeping with this. And what did all the commercials say? "Privacy. Safety. Choice. Vote Yes on Question 6." Duh. And we won.

Of these, I like "privacy" best. First because it is an essential part of the fight for reproductive rights, and also because it's hard to argue with. Opponents become "anti-privacy" in the same way that many of us have been branded "anti-life."

Whatever happened to the term "Reproductive Rights"? Speaking as a man, I'm not "for" abortion, but I'm even less "for" taking away someone's right to control her own body - and turning her into an incubator against her will.

You could call it "Personal Decision Rights" or (better still) "Individual Decision Rights," or "Physical Integrity Rights" or "Personal Control Rights." I think we need to find a way to replace the word "choice" with the word "decision," which acknowleges the gravity of the situation, but you also need to frame this as protecting the rights, integrity and privacy of the Individual. Anti-Abortionists need to be re-characterized as people who are anti- autonomy and anti-individual. They're big, intrusive, government types, who think nothing of empowering complete strangers to make decisions centered in a woman's unterus. And who knows what they'll try next????

The word is, quite simply Freedom. The right talks about freedom, even trumpets the idea that freedom isn't free, and sends sons to die in far away lands to protect our "freedom", yet wants to take away a woman's most important freedom. If a woman isn't free to decide the fate of her own body, she is nothing but a slave. As the father of three daughters I find it repulsive that in at least one state of this nation has passed laws to ensure that they would be forced to bear the child of a rapist. Quite litterally those on the right do not believe in freedom for women, they would rather see women subject to the rule of their husbands or fathers. Instead of just talking about it, I live free and aknowledge that the freedom I grant to others has costs to me, but that everyone is better off free than bound. Any child of my daughters is in effect her blood, her destiny, and she and only she can bear the consequences of her decisions. That is the definition of freedom.