‘Pro-freedom’ is worse than ‘pro-life’ in that it’s completely meaningless, and pro-lifers will obviously point to the ‘freedom’ of an unborn child from death.
None of the arguments made against ‘choice’ as a term in the RH article make much sense to me, or they define choice too narrowly. ‘Choice’ is an economic term? What about democratic choice? Choice should be a plural term? It already is, by definition. There should be positive supports? Of course, that’s integral to the idea of meaningful choice. Women of colour needed to emphasis control over their reproduction? Well, again isn’t that what choice is – to have a child or not?
The last one, “Pro-choice is a political label and has nothing to do with the real stories and lives of women who have abortions” is the most bizarre but I guess the only one with a real grain of truth. If women want to use another phrase to describe the issue of reproductive decision-making, no-one should stop them. But it will inevitably become a ‘political label’ as long as there is political argument over the subject.
American politics seems so suffused with sublimated racial and class issues that a lot of radical rhetoric comes off as awkwardly self-conscious: hence, choice is a ‘bourgeois’ term (in the Slate article)… which doesn’t sound like a phrase you’d hear in Ireland to the right of the smaller socialist groupings. I don’t doubt that wealth allows women to exercise choice more effectively, but the unequal distribution is the problem there and not the principle of choice.
The fact that abortion is legal in the US means that they’re essentially operating in a ‘post-choice’ landscape, albeit one with a lot of opposition from pro-lifers. I read a take from an American blogger recently – before the Savita controversy broke here – that the ‘pro-choice’ side is bogged down in fighting incremental restrictions on abortion, justifying things like abortions for rape, and what they really need to do is emphasise the ‘free, legal and safe’ ideal and show that there is no mandate for reversing Roe v. Wade, so it’s not going to go away.
This seems like a more timid approach that is perhaps uncomfortably close to triangulation – ‘choice’ doesn’t have enough popular appeal, so we’ll recast it in a form adapted to as many as possible.
Whereas in Ireland we are, and will remain in the foreseeable future, in a ‘pre-choice’ society where the principle of the woman having any significant decision-making power over her womb is still politically anathema. ‘Choice’ definitely seems like the rallying cry of contemporary activists here, I don’t see if any other term would be more effective.