Why don't we personify the Pro Choice position like the Pro Lifers do?

[LostInAnomie]

I live in a very conservative area that is fiercely pro life. Every year I am subjected to those fucking photos of dead fetuses with their skulls crushed. This year has been particularly bad since it is an election year. So I was wondering why our side doesn't try to personify the victims of the pro life stance like they do with the pro choice stance?

Why do we not have ads with young girls being forcibly raped with captions saying "Would you want your daughter to go through with the pregnancy?" Why don't we have ads with a mother and baby's graves side by side with the caption "Why sacrifice both?" I'm sure we could come up with images that bring the point home but we just aren't pushing them.

Maybe there are already ads like this and I just haven't seen them, but if there are we need to start moving them hard and heavy. We are losing the fight and I can't bear to see it all thrown away.

[jean]

1. the issue definitely needs work - we need to frame it and take back

all the people the repubs have tricked into supporting them

[Carla in Ca]

13. A few days ago, a poster had this in her message...

pro life ends at birth.

Isn't that great? Something needs to be done with it; a bumper sticker at least.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

2. For starters, the language needs to be corrected

They're not "pro-life."

They're "anti-choice."

If we just keep hammering that, it's a very good start.

Language is SO important.

Then, when they talk their bullshit about the "pro-born," be sure to make sure they understand that we and they are brothers and sisters together - we are the "pre-dead."

Assholes.

OK, I just lost it ...........

[Abelman]

7. good

That's a really good strategy. Especially since so many "pro-lifers" don't have a problem with people dying in the war.

Lose it. That's what I say. I'm sick and tired of the other side labeling us and bringing us down. It's up to us to stand up, wipe their shit off our shoulders, and be heard. And they need to learn it's not black and white until you get to a very specific situation.

I'd rather have less abortions personally. Fuckers.

[Anakin Skywalker]

11. "Language is SO important."

You said it, womandingo!

[A HERETIC I AM]

3. Calling the other side "Pro-Life" allows THEM to frame the debate......

because most so called "Pro-Life" folks are anything but. They tend to be OVERWHELMINGLY pro-death penalty. How exactly pro-life is that? Not to mention Pro-gun, pro-war, and usually against every single social program that ACTUALLY helps children.

Call them "Anti-Choice".

Thats what they truly are.

Pro-life my ass

on edit to tip the hat to Womandingo for beating me to the punch

[SoCalDem]

4. Our problem is that we let THEM frame the language

We are pro CHOICE
They are pro LIFE..

By virtue of them being pro-life, we automatically become pro death..There is no escape in the black/white/good/evil world they inhabit..

choice is a namby pamby word compared to LIFE/death..
Until OUR supporters and media mouthpieces wuit playing their word game, we will always we "underdogs", even though we have MORE support than they do..

Whenever they spout pro life, our people should immediately call them ANTI choice..NOT pro life..


it's just like the "Democrat senator" Democrat party" crap.. It's a seemingly small issue, but they have captured the very thing we call ourselves, and changed it..and we blithely accepted it..


If your name is Connie, and suddenly everyone starts calling you Susan, do you not stand up and MAKE them call you by your correct name, or do you just buy a new ID bracelet with a big ole "S" on it.?

[sybylla]

5. You should join Life and Liberty for Women

http://www.lifeandlibertyforwomen.org/
It is a very aggressive pro-choice org

<snip to bottom of home page>
Life and Liberty for Women will:
• Utilize graphic and emotional pictures that depict the horrific sights and sounds of illegal abortion to educate the generations who have grown up since Roe vs. Wade.
• Courageously engage in counter-demonstrations, displaying on the street corner those graphic sights of illegal abortion.
• Educate post-Roe generations that the only right and moral way to protect the life of women determined and desperate to terminate their unintended pregnancies - whether abortion is legal or not - is to combine accessible, safe, legal abortion services with abstinent-based age appropriate comprehensive sex education - more birth control research - greater birth control availability - and greater male responsibility in pregnancy prevention.
<snip>

Sounds like your kind of organization to me.

[gumby]

6. Drop "CHOICE" immediately

and use "pro-life" instead.

For women, it's not only a "choice," it is their LIFE and possibly the lives of their families.

[JPace]

8. One problem of the pro-choice movement is that

I am not sure it is a movement at all. While most people
support choice they do so with some discomfort and that
causes one to turn away from the issue. I don't know how
one would energize people to "be assertive" in the same
sense that pro-lifers are energized. Its not an easy sell
to get people to fight for choice and there seems to be
a rather small core of people who are given the task of
forging ahead for everyone. Its not fair but there it is.

I like the idea of "anti choice"....it says it all from
our perspective.

[ComerPerro]

14. That's exactly right

and it is one reason that conservatives are so insistant and are so lock-step (the other being that they are clueless morons).

For another example, consider same-sex marriage.

I know many people who are not opposed to the idea of same-sex marriage. But it is hard to energize that group. To most people same-sex marriage is something that does not matter to them personally. It is therefore hard to get them to vote on this issue, since they have no strong feelings one way or the other.

Imagine if you had something on the ballot that would make abortion illegal. It would be a right wing fanatics dream, because every single fundamentalist nutjob in the country would be signing up voters left and right. Meanwhile, its harder to get out the "pro-choice" vote.

[BeFree]

9. It's a right

A women has a right to chose what she will do with her body and government should never take away that right.

The anti-choice people want to take away all kinds of rights from individuals. They have been far too successful in their endeavors, and it's time we get government out of our bedrooms, out of our heads and off our bodies.

It's all about individual rights and against invasive government. It used to be a 'conservative thing' it now needs to be our main calling.

Government should never again be allowed to take away an individual's rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.


A fetus is not an individual. A mother is.

Kerry On!

[prayin4rain]

10. I know, and personify all of those poor children

born into abuse, poverty, drug addiction, foster programs and a million other horrible situations. Situations that the "pro-life" side doesn't want to give funding to help make better. These people make me sick. We are pro-compassion in every way. We want what is best for mother and fetus or child if the mother so chooses not what is best for our own self-righteousness. It must be nice to make unequipped and often abused teenagers have babies they cannot take care of. I think sometimes these pro-life people want these babies born to disadvantage so they can keep their slave race. Disgusting.

[Anakin Skywalker]

12. I am Forgetful. :-(

None of the religious fundies' stances and beliefs make any sense to me. And then again, I keep forgetting, the religious right has always use emotion, not logic. Ooh spank me already!

[Dukakis88]

15. "If Osama Bin Laden Had Been Aborted, 9/11 Could Have Been Prevented"