Reply #31: The Dangerous Road [View All]

Unfortunately both the terms pro-life and pro-choice are rather poor attempts at framing. What do they mean?

For example, if I am pro-life does that mean I won't kill anything? Do I eat animals? Is war immoral? Do I automatically oppose the death penalty?

If I am pro-choice do I support a mother who drinks herself to sleep every night while she is pregnant? Do I support the bad choice the mother and father made to conceive a baby that they would later reject?

Now, before this turns into a flame fest, let me say that I am just posing logical questions here. I apologize if they are incendiary. That is not my purpose. I am trying to point out how language can de-contextualize (is that even a word?) the discussion. This is very dangerous and plays into the us/them mindset.

In other words, by accepting these rudimentary frames, we have in essence destroyed the dialectic. This in and of itself is very destructive to democracy.

This is a very dangerous road we are traveling. We do not have to look back that far in history to see where it can lead.

O