for the Freedom of Choice Act to be passed, which says in part:

"A woman's decision to commence, prevent, continue, or terminate a pregnancy is one of the most intimate decisions an individual ever faces. As such, reproductive health decisions are best made by the woman, in consultation with her medical provider or loved ones, without governmental interference."

It's, also, way past time that people without uteruses stop trying to tell women what they should or should not do with their own bodies, which is a right the men have always enjoyed.

Why are some men so afraid of women having equal rights with them? Are they afraid women will take power and treat them as unfairly as they have treated women?

captcrisis typed: "Except that in those days (1960s) pro-life tended to be the "liberal", "feminist" position, and it was the conservatives who were in favor of legal abortion ..."

--

Having been brought up a feminist by people who were pro-choice and feminists from forever (my grandmother worked with Margaret Sanger to get birth control), I can assure you, captcrisis, and anyone else who did not live through the '60s, that this is utter nonsense.

Another important problem with your assertion is that you forgot to include so-called in front of "pro-life." Those people are, much more accurately, anti-women.

====

From "pro-life" Justice Antonin Scalia: "Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached."

Officer Saletan of the Word Police is indulging in some gender profiling in telling women how they are supposed to speak. Thanks so some of the other posters for righting that imbalance (like "the boys" :-) :-) )

His book, published by U California Press, Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War (2003?), is supposed to be respected and evenhanded. IIRC a lot of it had to do with comparing both sides' use of language, i.e., framing. OK.

But now he's confusing the individual with the issue. It's like confusing a population's rate of an illness with an individual's personal risk.

And it's freaking insulting.

Oh, to the guy/gal who was p.o.'d about TCF not condemning the French woman, clearly she was saying that the poor woman was crazy (it's in the paragraph beginning "As an armchair psychiatrist...")

Is the character happy? Doesn't sound like it to me.

Sure he overstates the consequences, but do you seriously disagree with the general assertion that calling unborn spawn a "baby" is correlated with intention to carry it through? Outside the traumatized-by-miscarriage case or the scrupulous-about-vocabulary case, I think this would be a pretty good indicator. Since I think you yourself tend to be scrupulous about vocabulary maybe this is less obvious, but I suspect to most people it's fairly plain.

I notice that at no place does Tracey indicate any disapproval for the Frenchwoman who killed three of her own newborns. Any denial at play here?

But you didn't voice any disapproval either.

You chose instead to use your time and energy to harangue Tracy.

What are we supposed to conclude from that choice of yours?

The fact that you'd rather criticize Tracy than criticize the woman who killed her kids says a lot about your politics IMHO.

And they can't even talk.

He even compares these folks to cows, if you accept that sort of Broadsheet-style schoolyard textual analysis.

Methinks Kate Harding will be beside herself.

pregnant (from Miriam-Webster online dictionary):

preg·nant

Pronunciation:

ˈpreg-nənt

Function:

adjective

Etymology:

Middle English, from Latin praegnant-, praegnans carrying a fetus, alteration of praegnas, from prae- pre- + -gnas (akin to gignere to give birth to) — more at kin

Date:

14th century

1archaic : cogent

2: abounding in fancy, wit, or resourcefulness : inventive

3: rich in significance or implication : meaningful, profound

4: containing a developing embryo, fetus, or unborn offspring within the body : gravid

5: having possibilities of development or consequence : involving important issues : momentous

6obsolete : inclined, disposed

7: full, teeming

"Pregnant" has always been a word that describes a state of becoming, not being. It's a state of possibility, not certainty.

A newly fertilized egg, an embryo, or a non-viable fetus is a *potential* baby. Not to be confused with a fully-developed, breathing, infant.

"Does the value of a life solely depend on a woman's attitude toward it? How is this different from men owning their wives?"

The difference is a wife is not dependent upon her husband's body for life support. I own my body and no one gets to be inside it without my ongoing permission and consent.

Or maybe "blastocyte". This is a silly argument, of course. It is in line with dumbass right-wing arguments and laws forcing women to view ultra-sound photos of their FETUS before an abortion -- supposing that suddenly, you know, a 9 year old girl will see a BABEEE and decide to give birth to a child conceived when she was raped by her stepdad.

It supposes that women only abort for the most trivial and facile of reasons, and therefore, they use language to "pretend" that a 8 day old clump of cells is somehow different from a full-developed, full term infant. But of course -- they ARE different. And Roe vs. Wade took all that into consideration, which is why 1st trimester abortions are without restriction, but later 2nd trimester ones are harder to get and 3rd trimester abortions very difficult and limited to the most extreme situations.

Language about pregnancy is cultural and reflects customs and beliefs. It wasn't that long ago in the US, that women referred obliquely to being "in the family way " or "enciente" or "expecting" or some other euphemism. You could not just say pregnant -- certainly not on TV or in the movies! It was just too...literal and sexual.

Of course today, even strangers will buttonhole you and discuss the most clinical details of their IVF or natural childbirth videos or episiotomy. I am not so sure it's a big improvement.

The fact is, a baby is not a human being until he/she is BORN. Yes, that's the standard, by custom, by law, by common sense. The fact that doctors will work to try and save preemies is because THEY ARE BORN. The reason they will do surgery or other procedures on a developing FETUS is because the parents WANT this particular child -- not because it is required. The babyness of a fetus is entirely in the imagination of a mother or father who are vested in and WANT a baby when the FETUS is BORN.

I actually believe just the OPPOSITE of Mr. Saletan and I think this is important -- I believe that calling a blastocyte a "baby" is manipulation of language in order to make women feel guilty about necessary abortions they need to lead full and complete autonomous lives as adult women. I think some parts of our society vastly overvalue the potential future life of a clump of cells, or undeveloped fertilized egg and UNDERVALUE the life of women. This is born out clearly when anti-abortionists scoff at the laziness of women who simply can't take 9 months of "inconvenience" (because, yeah, pushing a 10lb baby out of your cervix after 18 hours of back labor is, you know, INCONVENIENT).