Pro-choice, pro-abortion: is there a difference?

“I am not pro-abortion. I’m pro-choice.”

Politicians are used to saying it. Pro-life activists are weary of hearing it. Less-informed voters are wooed and won over by it. So let’s take a closer look at the word “choice.”

“Choice” is a subjective noun that requires a verb to complete the sentence. Pro-choice to what? Let’s complete the sentence.

We know that when we say “pro-choice,” we usually mean that we are in favour of a mother’s choice to have an abortion. We also know that every abortion kills a child. Put the two together and we have the completed sentence. “I’m pro-choice to kill a child.”

There is, therefore, no difference in spirit or in practice between pro-choice and pro-abortion. For what we are saying when we utter the words “I’m not in favour of abortion myself, but I support the right to choose” is, “I wouldn’t have an abortion myself, but I’ll do everything I can to help you get one – if that is your choice.”

We might as well say, “I would never rob a bank but if you choose to, I’ll help you as much as I can. I’ll supply the ammunition. I’ll even be the look-out.”

Assent amounts to implementing an act and giving it social acceptance and respectability. The guilt is equal if not greater.

For example, do we have any documentation whatever that Joseph Stalin, personally and unaided, carried one single prisoner to the concentration camps? Yet who would say he was innocent?

The pro-choice position taken by politicians and political candidates hinges on two things: the emotive human rights argument and the desire to appear reasonable enough to be elected and re-elected.

Let’s deal with the first – our inalienable right to choose. The truth is there is no such right, because every right we have is subject to conditions.

Our absolute freedom of speech is restricted by laws that forbid slander and inciting people to riot. Our hard-earned freedom of assembly is restricted by laws forbidding trespass or breaking and entering.

Apart from the most basic human right that transcends all others – the right to life – we have no absolute right to choose. In a society that does not revolve on anarchy but on some degree of reason, one person’s rights must end where the next person’s begin.

It should be noted here that society has no difficulty in dismissing claims regarding other choices; for example, driving while impaired, lighting up a cigarette anywhere one chooses, peddling cocaine to those who choose to buy it. The right to choose to kill should not be inviolate.

Now for what it is all about – getting elected.

Politicians and political candidates have successfully convinced thousands of voters that there is a difference between being pro-abortion and pro-choice. They have, therefore, been successful in convincing people that their stand is reasonable.

Let the facts speak for themselves. Pro-abortion legislation was supported by politicians calling themselves “not pro-abortion but pro-choice.” Such were the case with government bill of 1988, its pro-abortion amendments in 1989, and Bill C-43, which would have written into law the acceptability of abortion just for the asking.

On the other hand, pro-life initiatives introduced by pro-life politicians such as Senator Haidasz, Tom Wappel, Gus Mitges and Don Boudria, were vigorously opposed by so called “pro-choice but not pro-abortion” parliamentarians.

Take our prime minister, Brian Mulroney. He has repeatedly proclaimed that he is pro-life; yet to respect the right to choose, he not only expedited the introduction of Bill C-43 but openly let it be known that any cabinet minister who voted against it would be a cabinet minister no longer.

The leader of the opposition, Jean Chretien, absolves himself by feeding voters the “pluralistic society” line (“I am personally pro-life but cannot impose my views in a pluralistic society”). Yet, under his supervision, his party hierarchy prevented pro-life motions from being discussed at the Policy Convention in Hull last February. Meanwhile, they themselves moved a motion protecting “choice.” In other words, the proof is in the pudding.

Those who hold a pro-choice position have the right to be educated. But if they persist in what is, at best, culpable ignorance or deliberate deception, they deserve to be targeted for defeat. Their actions make it clear there is no difference between pro-abortion and pro-choice.

Needless to say, the right to kill is never an option. We are talking about a child, not a choice.