I think that the difference is adultery is not a life or death issue. I believe that adultery is wrong but I don't want to government legislating our personal lives. However when I look at abortion I see a life or death issue. 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.
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?
Calling it "pro-choice" is not a philosophical decision, but a marketing decision from those who want to keep abortion legal, but don't want to remind people of what the choice entails. Notice that politicians will invariably say "I want to preserve a woman's right to choose", but they never explicitly say choose what. It would drive down their poll numbers to say the "a" word.
Hah! Next time a (D) accuses an (R) of being "against a woman's right to choose", the (R) should maybe say, "Of course not. Women can choose to vote for whoever they want, just like men can!"Play word games until the (D) is forced into saying the "a-word."
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.