Pro-Choice Language Changes Again.
The folks over at NARAL Pro-Choice America have recently developed a new strategy for tackling the abortion debate: responsibility. Developed from a poll conducted within focus groups, NARAL's smart, savvy angle is perhaps one way that the abortion debate can be less polemical and more useful."According to the poll, only 22 percent of Americans say abortions should be "generally available." Another 26 percent say "regulation of abortion is necessary, although it should remain legal in many circumstances." That's a pro-choice total of just 48 percent, even when you phrase the second option to emphasize regulation. Thirty-nine percent say "abortion should be legal only in the most extreme cases," such as rape and incest, and 11 percent say all abortions should be illegal. That's 50 percent support for two hardcore pro-life positions."These numbers, however, represent the views based on the current debate. The poll explores what happens when you integrate "value words" such as responsibility, freedom, and personal. NARAL found that once you begin the values rhetoric, pro-choice numbers rise significantly. Here are the choices the poll presents: "We should promote a culture of freedom and responsibility by focusing on preventing unintended pregnancies and reducing the need for abortion through increasing access to family planning services, access to affordable birth control and by providing comprehensive age appropriate sex education in schools." The poll asks people to choose between this and "a culture of life that recognizes the importance of every human life," including the belief that "life begins at conception." The culture of freedom and responsibility beats the culture of life, 61 to 27 percent. The pro-choice minority becomes a pro-choice majority."Back in 1989, NARAL tried to revamp their angle using similar tactics (focus groups and new language) and it backfired when their "get the government out of our lives" was used by both liberals and conservatives in ways that regressed abortion laws. NARAL hopes that with this campaign, they can latch on to the strategic language of the right--culture of freedom, responsibility--in order to push their agenda beyond the hardcore pro-choice circles. Yet, this whole thing really begs the question: in what ways does adopting "conservative" rhetoric help the goals of "progressive, liberal" organizations and in what ways does it further complicate what the hell all of this--culture of life, freedom, etc.--means anyway? While I'm all for becoming a hell of a lot more media and spin savvy and I realize that we can't all go gallivanting around trying to deconstruct language and meaning, I wonder if this whole adopting the conservative language movement is not just aiding the national move to the "right"? |
posted by stimulate this at 10:07 AM
Comments on "Pro-Choice Language Changes Again."
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Anonymous said ... (16/6/05 3:25 PM) :
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Anonymous said ... (17/6/05 11:09 AM) :
post a commentAt the National Council for Research on Women (NCRW)conference I attended last week, there was an interactive panel on "reproductive justice" and we discussed how the term "justice" contributes a moral quality that the terms,
"freedom," "rights," and "choice" do not sufficiently accomplish. We talked about how this kind of rhetoric is important in appealing to a broader audience, similar
to NARAL's purpose in shifting language. I understand your point that framing the issue in
"conservative" terms can be problematic, but I think it's high time for progressive issues to be framed through a moral lens. I certainly don't consider my
agenda immoral in any way and I'm tired of the religious right staking a higher moral ground. Seeing pro-choice work as "pro-life" can be an empowering way of
taking back language, making the issue more complex, and redefining an agenda. After all, why should conservatives get dibs on all the provocative and good phrases? I
think that what can be tricky, though, as your example shows, is that it's important not to shift the whole issue when shifting language. It's great that people respond more positively to supporting the prevention of unintended pregnancies and a
reduction in abortions. But, abortion rights support is still important too and we need people who are willing to speak out about that as well. My concern is that when pro-choice groups use the term, "responsibility," they need to be clear about what that means so as to not accidentally pin the responsibility of unintended pregnancies on just the woman and
ignore the complex social factors at work.
When did freedom and responsibility become the language of the conservative party? The truth is that as such words have become the tools of conservatives liberals have abandoned them.
Granted, freedom and responsibility are part of the dinosaur of liberal humanism, however the adoption of conservative phraseology undermines Conservatives use of such language forcing them to reword and clarify their own stances.
Conservatives have long used this strategy of co-opting language in order to undermine their opponents. One needs only to recall the rights appropriation of such liberal terms as diversity or justice (please excuse my conflation on the right and conservatism and the left and liberalism) to realize meticulous awareness of the conservative party to language.
A point worth noting is that US nationalism is based upon a constructed ontic (and performative) statement that cyclically serves as ontological through its performance—the rights to form the US was declared in the Declaration of Independence. And, the declaration established an origin for the US through the creation of the legitimacy of such rights.
Such terms as freedom and liberty and responsibility formed the framework that constituted the US nation in its constitution. Thus, to use the language of the US constitution and democracy automatically recalls the tenants on which the mythology of the US stands. To use such terms invents in the US’s identity even as they (re)define US identity.
Thus, the use of such language is so persuasive because they are intrinsically connected with what the US “stands for” recalling what it means to be part of the US. Freedom, justice and responsibility are catechrestic having no “tangible” meaning and always being open to interpretation. As such, these words have no intrinsic connection to the Right and to assume such a connection is to forgo their collective power, denying ourselves the ability to proactively define them through strategic use.