That's no reason to resort to hyperbole to oppose abortion. (In fact, hyperbole should be even less necessary.) Moreover, suppose that a woman who finds out her husband is committing adultery becomes despondent and kills herself. Would you have the law treat her husband as a murderer?
If I believe that abortion is a taking of human life, then it shouldn't make any difference whether that life happens to be my own child or yours.
If anti-abortion people could prove that abortion is the taking of a "human" life, then they would have no need to resort to hyperbole. (Moreover, I could make a strong case that there is nothing wrong with valuing the lives of your own children more than those of anyone else.)
In the same vein, a southern before the Civil War would argue that he (or she) is simply pro-choice. Stephen Douglas certainly made that argument to Lincoln in the Lincoln/Douglas debates. How much respect would such a position get today when slavery is universally viewed as an evil?
I certainly respect Antebellum Southerners who thought slavery was wrong but should be legal more than I respect those who held slaves and claimed that it was part of God's plan for negroes. Lincoln, for example, was not an abolitionist when he first became President but rather thought that slavery should be ended by (a) appealing to what he thought were the Jeffersonian instincts of most Southerners and (b) compensating slaveholders for giving up slavery. It was only when he realized that slaveholders would fight to the death to preserve slavery that he became an abolitionist.
Of course, a legal choice to enslave is the opposite of a legal choice to abort. The modern slaveholders are the anti-abortion zealots who want to maintain pregnant women in bondage until they deliver a baby.
Calling it "pro-choice" is not a philosophical decision, but a marketing decision...
On the contrary, the "pro-choice" label is accurate for people who do not want the state to prohibit abortion and that's why it infuriates the anti-abortion zealots. On the other hand, the "pro-life" label anti-abortion zealots use is false advertising (unless the "pro-lifers" are in favor of women having as many babies as possible even if that means they have to be raped and held in bondage throughout their fertile years).
Notice that politicians will invariably say "I want to preserve a woman's right to choose", but they never explicitly say choose what.
Do you really think anyone doesn't know what choice they are talking about? If I asked a conservative office seeker "Do you believe that the state should permit people to choose to smoke so many cigarettes that they die of lung cancer or emphysema", you would expect him to say "Yes, I think the state should permit people to choose to smoke so many cigarettes that they die of lung cancer or emphysema"? There is a huge difference between false advertising and effective true advertising.
That might be the most insane thing I have ever read. The mindless drivel at DU is Pulitzer material compared to that mad rant.
The choice is made at conception. The "product of conception" is a human being. To deny that is to deny scientific fact. If you are "pro-choice" to kill unborn babies then, to be consistent, you must be "pro-choice" to kill other children as well.
Of course, a legal choice to enslave is the opposite of a legal choice to abort. The modern slaveholders are the anti-abortion zealots who want to maintain pregnant women in bondage until they deliver a baby.
Oh my goodness I hope we don't equate the responsibilities of parenthood with slavery. I have 6 kids and though I sometimes feel like I'm in involuntary servitude, I never would think that that would justify offing my kids. Oh I know that you're only referring to the nine months that kids spend in their mother's womb, but I don't see much of difference. It certainly wouldn't make any difference to the life you snuff out.
But on the slavery issue: Most slaveholders did not feel that their actions were morally wrong. Essentially they're philosophy was that blacks were inferior to whites. They were either savages or children and this gave the slaveholders the right to keep them in bondage. They had taken a morally repugnant position and defended it on the basis of choice. Consider the two following statements:
Both are moral statements and neither can be proven. Are all men or races equal? How do you know? Can you prove it? But we believe this statement to be true, so that by even asking the question, one would be accused of racism. This was not the case 200 years ago, when whites would routinely ask the question and because they could ask the question they would argue that they had the right to choose to be slaveholders.
The zealots in the battle over slavery were the abolitionists who tried to impose that first statement on all people regardless of their moral beliefs - and thank God they won.
You could point out that the statement, "all men are created equal" is mentioned in the Declaration of Independence - and you'd be right. You'd of course find it a few sentences before statement about all men having "a right to life".
One final point. Yes, when a politician says "I believe in a woman's right to choose" we all know what he or she is talking about. However it is telling that the sentence by itself makes no sense and that the "a" word is avoid whenever possible. One might as well say, "I belive in the right to control" and never mention the word "guns". You might want to consider why politicians avoid completing that sentence, especially if you maintain that the right to choose abortion is an entirely reasonable one.
I actually know women who had an abortion and regret it, I've never met a woman who decided to let their baby live and regretted that ---in fact they seem horrified that they might have considered abortion at all. How can motherhood really be compared with slavery?