Honk If You're Pro-(Fill in the Blank)

On the way to work this morning, we drove alongside this car that had a lot of pro-life bumper stickers. One sticker said, "Honk if you're pro-life."

It got me to thinking about that term, "pro life." It's such a faulty term in so many levels because it presupposes that those who do not support the pro-life movement are, what, pro-death? Last time I checked, the opposite camp was called pro-choice.

And let's look at the word "choice," shall we? Dictionary.com says that choice is "the right, power, or opportunity to choose" and that's exactly what I believe in. Personally, I'm against abortion. If I had an unwanted pregnancy (which is laughable right now, but just go with the hypothetical), my go-to solution would not be abortion. But I realize that other women (and men, for that matter) would choose abortion because of circumstances that are beyond the realm of understanding of other people. Believe me, I know. That's their prerogative. I am not in the business of making other people live the way I live and believe what I believe. I love diversity and I thrive in it. I believe in the individual's right to choose within logical and equitable parameters. A term that immediately forces the opposing team into a corner that they did not necessarily - er - choose is neither logical nor equitable. That's what really grinds my gears (to borrow from Peter Griffin).

Too bad the antonyms available for choice do not pertain to the word's function for choosing. So I can't offer any alternative to the term pro-life. (Well, at least nothing that would not belie my inherent - *ehem* - maturity.) We can go on and on about when life actually starts for a fetus - but I'm not interested in that particular debate. So for now, let the chips fall where they may. I just don't want people to think that I'm pro-death because I'm not pro-life.

Of course, you should know that this rant was brought to you by the fact that that bleepin' car cut us on the road. From the left side of the road, the driver drove in front of us and made a sudden right. I would've honked, but she might have thought I was on her side. So much for pro-life. She could've killed us.