“Pro-life” or “Anti-choice”? What’s a feminist to think?

Past forays into the feminist blogosphere introduced me to the notion of “anti-choice.” Feministing, the F-Word, Ms. Magazine, and Jezebel all regularly employ the term. When I first encountered “anti-choice”, I accepted it as a piece of feminist vernacular, an alternate way to say “pro-life.” Now, in my first weeks as an intern at the National Women’s Health Network, anti-choice has reentered my consciousness.

After hearing, reading about, and participating in endless pro-choice versus pro-life debates, transforming the argument into pro-choice versus anti-choice feels like a clarifying change. It simplifies the positions until they are impossible to misinterpret. The pro-life movement aims to legally restrict access to abortion. Pro-choicers feel this aim is anti-choice because it limits women’s options during pregnancy. Pro-choicers are FOR reproductive choices and anti-choicers are AGAINST reproductive choices. Anti-choice is too straightforward to criticize.

But something about the term anti-choice bothers me. Maybe it’s the idea of reducing the opinion of 45 percent of voters(1) to a term with obvious negative connotations. Maybe it’s the fact that I don’t appreciate my view being branded as “anti-life” by conservatives so I find it hypocritical to engage in similar branding of the opposition. Mostly, I think the term anti-choice bothers me because it is an unfair characterization of some of the people who personally oppose abortion.

Before you renounce my feminist credentials, let me explain. I think one of the problems with the pro-choice vs. pro-life debate is that somewhere along the line these terms were redefined in the popular consciousness to have moral rather than legal definitions. Pro-choice came to mean morally pro-abortion and pro-life came to mean morally anti-abortion, without regard to the legal aspirations of the movements.

Abortion debates with my “pro-life” friends generally center on the moral arguments for and against terminating a pregnancy. When I ask “Do you think abortion should be illegal?” my pro-life friends unanimously say no. These friends are not anti-choice. Even though they believe abortion is wrong, they support a woman’s right to choose abortion if it is the best option for her. In a legal sense, my friends are pro-choice because they support abortion as an available option for others.

Complicating the issue even further is the fact that many of the people who claim abortion “should be illegal in most circumstances” would not actively support a law against abortion. According to new research by NARAL Pro-Choice America and Bendixen + Amandi, the Latina community, which is traditionally opposed to abortion, is also opposed to government intervention in women’s reproductive choices. While 53 percent of Latinas surveyed said abortion should be illegal in most cases, 75 percent said the government should not be allowed to decide when a woman can or can not have an abortion.

This disparity is the result of confusion between what is morally acceptable and what is legally acceptable. Some Latina women express their moral opposition to abortion by saying it should be illegal, but do not advocate for and would not support a law against abortion. These women recognize that their views are not applicable to the rest of society, so they support other women’s individual decisions about abortion. From a legal standpoint, such people are not anti-choice.
 
I would argue that the only people who can be fairly characterized as anti-choice are those who advocate for restricting access to abortion. Picketers at abortion clinics, pregnancy help centers that show women gruesome pictures of aborted fetuses, and anti-abortion groups lobbying congress are anti-choice.

Perhaps we should attempt to convince moral pro-lifers that their support of a legal abortion option actually makes them pro-choice. But that would probably be a herculean undertaking. Instead, maybe we can get out the message that abortion legality does not contradict a pro-life attitude. And while we’re at it, we can be a little more cautious about who we describe as anti-choice.

(1) Pew Research Center Survey 2009 Poll on Abortion support http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1361/support-for-abortion-slips