A Woman's Right to Make Her Own Decisions About Having Children

[cthulu2016]

Last edited Thu Oct 11, 2012, 12:21 PM - Edit history (1)

I heard Cecile Richards use this language and it jumped out at me as very powerful. This is the right phrasing, for all purposes.

A Woman's Right to Make Her Own Decisions About Having Children

"A woman's right to choose" is fine, but it sounds a wee bit euphemistic and frivolous. A woman's right to make her own decisions means the same thing, but is heard quite differently.

And "...about having children" is perfect. The decision is not about abortion. Abortion is a procedure... something doctors do. The decision is, indeed, about having children.

And it is hard to picture anyone countering the proposition that women have a right to make their own decisions about having children without being driven into dangerous rhetorical territory.

[cthulu2016]

1. .

[4th law of robotics]

2. I don't really see those two statements as being all that distinct

what difference do you hear between them?

[cthulu2016]

3. You have to step outside our perspective

"Choose" is like picking a chocolate from a box... choice is a luxury. Everyone knows that we don't get to choose everything. Choice, to many, implies self-indulgence.

And choosing an abortion is choosing to destroy a fetus. The action is the abortion.

This is how many people color the phrase.

You know that many millions of people are unmoved by a woman's right to choose.

The great majority of those people, however, do accept that a woman has an absolute right to make her own decision about having children. (To most of them she is supposed to make that decision by not having sex, of course.)

But forced child bearing is an abhorrent concept to most.

[4th law of robotics]

4. Ok

That makes sense.

Although it is a bit more awkward to say than simply "choice".

[CTyankee]

8. Sandra Day O'Connor wrote that a government who could force a woman to give birth

could also force a woman to have an abortion.

this is an excellent ground to be on in the abortion debate. If it makes some people's brains hurt to reason this out, then so be it....

[Jamastiene]

5. If I understand correctly, it is about re-framing the debate on abortion laws.

For so long, right wingers have latched onto catch phrases like "choice" to make it into some kind of frivolous, nonchalant action taken by women to abort babies for the hell of it. In reality, it is not like that at all. It takes two to tango to get a woman pregnant, but it is on the woman to figure out whether she can make enough money to raise the kid for 18 years. She's on her own to deal with it. It is not some whim to have an abortion. Women go through a lot during and after that decision.

Re-framing the debate might help in making more people understand that there is much more to it than catch phrases.

[cthulu2016]

6. Yes

I heard Cecile Richards use this framing on TV and it jumped out at me as a proposition that is, as language, almost impossible to refute.

And I was thinking why it had jumped out at me.

Decision is weighty. And a decision about having children is the weightiest of all.

Choice is affirmative. You choose things you want.

Nobody really "chooses" abortion. Nobody wants an abortion for the sake of having an abortion.

Everyone, woman and men, has made decisions about having children that they cannot imagine being dictated -- being ordered to have sex, being ordered to marry... these are repellent concepts to most people.

And people really are not pro-life because the great majority favor a rape exception. They are anti-choice. They favor abortion if it's really serious... rape, incest, life of the mother.

So the seriousness of the decision is the psychological key.

Even Obama once said (one of the worst things he has ever said) that he is pro-choice because he trusts women to make a serious decision... that he knows woman do not take it lightly.

That shouldn't matter at all, but as politics it does.

[CTyankee]

7. Hi, cthulu, I worked for Planned Parenthood at the state level and wrote lots of

fundraising letters. Our phrase was similar to Cecile's. We phrased it such that "women should decide whether or when to have a child." We also talked about women wanting to bring a child lovingly and responsibly into this world, a phrase that resonated with our older female donor base who were our most passionate supporters.