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I'm ok with that -- obviously that's what they are!
There's even the movement to stop saying pro-choice (among pro-choicers) and instead say pro-abortion. I'm fine with this. Obviously whether abortion is acceptable and should be legal, and under what circumstances, is the core of the debate. I'm happy to use the euphemisms, because it's also true that pro-lifers believe they're defending life and pro-choicers believe they're defending the ability to choose whether to carry a child to term.
I get the "marriage equality" thing, but honestly I'm fine with that term too -- if you believe gay marriage is meaningfully different from straight marriage, obviously you think it's unequal, and should be so legally, in an important way! Of course, that's strategically dangerous, but I would rather people just bite the bullet of whatever it is they want to argue for and own it. But I'm also happy with the term "traditional marriage," though I'd prefer if advocates for that opposed "we just don't love each other anymore" divorces as well.
I guess I just take the "avoid semantic debates" thing pretty far -- for the most part, I'll use any term you want me to use, I'd prefer to think about the object level.
I did a fun excercise once, where I tried to exploit the euphemism treadmill for humor or for trolling (not that I commend trolling). I just found the most out-there, unknown, transgressive, new-style, politically-correct term for something, then used it to say something deeply offensive about that thing:
"People of color should go back to where they came from."
"Birthing people should be forced to have at least one child a year." (This phrase is just dumb, I see why radfems hated it so much.)
"BIPOC are a major threat to the social fabric of the United States."
"The LGBTQIA2S+ community is made up entirely of groomers."
"Trans women of color are the worst people on the planet."
(For the record, I don't believe any of this. These are merely examples.)
Doesn't have the same valence as using a slur, does it? And yet these phrases communicate a pretty harsh claim. But stripped of opposing-tribe markers, the actual object-level claim emerges like Neo from the uterine vat of the Matrix, and can be discussed.
So I guess that's why I cringe at euphemistic avoidance of opposing-tribe terms: I'd rather make a harsh claim in a way that might get mistaken for an opposing-tribe claim than signal my in-group in a way that burdens my claim with its smell. It's not about claiming territory for me, it's about exploring ideas.
Well, one sticking point is that it used to be a major conservative talking point on the topic of gay marriage that the word "marriage" means "a man and a woman getting hitched", exclusively, fundamentally; that so-called "gay marriage" is not marriage at all, and granting queers the use of that word even with a qualifier is already surrendering half the battle. Precisely analogous to the anti-trans contingent's reluctance to use a term like "trans woman".
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Among pro-choicers themselves? I remember in the past once, wanting to avoid biased labels, talking about 'anti-abortion and pro-abortion activists', and the latter angrily telling me that this was incredibly biased of me, and they're not 'pro-abortion', nobody is in favour of abortions as such, but rather they are in favour of a woman's right to choose. I thought that remained the general position, and that outside of a few relatively radical voices, very few people actually try to present themselves as liking abortion as such.
In practice today I mostly just use 'pro-life' and 'pro-choice', and when people quibble those labels ("They're not pro-life! They're just pro-birth! Look, they oppose the welfare state and support capital punishment!" and similar), I tend to assume the quibblers are just trying to pick fights and are not worth engaging with in good faith.
Yeah, I recall it was an explicit point among some pro-choicers to “own” the abortion activism in the aftermath of Dobbs. Maybe the larger ecosystem has rejected that take. But it was a thing at the time, and I respected the candor and straightforwardness of the view. I get that the point is “women should have the right to choose” and that it’s not “abortion is the greatest thing ever!” but the shift has been from “safe, legal, and rare” to “safe, legal, and none of your damn business how rare it is.” It’s more of a change in tone than a change in view point.
At least here’s one activist group that thinks this way.
...wow, that's a new one to me. In my experience prior to now, very few activists would say that abortions are actively good. The line I usually heard was indeed that abortions, while unpleasant or even tragic, are sometimes necessary, and that the best person to decide whether or not one is necessary is the woman considering one. That seemed like a more sensible approach if only because there are a great many people who have moral qualms or concerns around abortion who can be persuaded into accepting it sometimes as a lesser evil, and those are the people that pro-choice and pro-life movements fight to sway to their side.
But I'm probably behind the times here. I haven't been following this area closely over the last few years.
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