I started to write this as a comment to another diary, but my impatience with this matter got the better of me. I don't do anger very well, so please be patient. But every time I see this, it drives me around the bend.
We must not let the right define the terms of public discourse and debate. They've done this in the most dishonest, egregious way in the matter of abortion. They've done it--or we've let them do it--to the point where we're calling them "pro-life." Commentators, Kossacks, almost every public discourse I hear or read refers to those opposed to legalized abortion as "pro-life."
Please. These people are no more "pro-life" than Saddam Hussein's regime was. I know the rank-and-file followers of the anti-legal abortion movement's leaders sincerely believe their movement to be pro-life, and sincerely have grave moral misgivings about abortion. I can respect that.
But I wish they could see that theirs is not a "pro-life" movement by any stretch. It is an anti-legalized abortion/outlaw-abortion-for-average-American-women movement. In their "pro-life" America, the outlaw-abortion-movement leaders know full well what life would be for American women of child-bearing capacity: women with names like McCain, Bush, Cheney, and those of other rich and ultra-rich dynasties would have no trouble obtaining abortions. And they would procure abortions, make no mistake. In "pro-life" America, even birth control would be severely restricted, if not outlawed in most circumstances, as it was in the first half of the 20th Century. In the pre-Roe days in America, desperate women sought abortions, and went through hell--literal hell--to get them. They risked their lives, their fertility, their health, and some of them paid with their lives. If the anti-legalized-abortion crowd "wins," they know this would be the plight of the women of America.
No, I cannot think of anything remotely "pro-life" about anything the Republican Party--or John McCain--stands for.
So please, when referring to the anti-legalized-abortion movement and its leaders, do not call them "pro-life." Don't give them that power over us. Don't give them the status of high moral ground because they don't deserve it.