Language war

One of the hot topics in politics and society today concerns the issue of abortion. In March 2004, the District of Columbia saw an emergence of over one million advocates in support of the March for Women’s Lives. One of those groups was our own University’s chapter of Voices for Choices (VFC). Each year, VFC hosts numerous events, ranging from Condoms and Cookies in Kogan Plaza, to Sextravaganxa on Mount Vernon. The point of such a pro-choice organization is not to promote sexual activity, but rather, open up a forum for discussion, awareness and education about sex. It is only through active discussion of this controversial topic that can we begin to differentiate between myth and fact and come to understand the core of the problem that the controversy itself has stemmed from.

I personally consider myself to be anti-abortion and pro-choice. There is no seeming contradiction to this, as I am an advocate for proper sex education and awareness for men and women alike. Many of the activities that VFC hosts concern preventing unplanned pregnancies and thus preventing the possibility of having an abortion. Typically, the onus of protection during sex would normally fall on the male and one example of opening up awareness and bringing education is to empower women with an understanding of contraception and the proper usage of protection during intercourse. On a college campus, where many students can be considered to be sexually active, the need for an organization like VFC is great. Abortion, while considered by many as a brutal act upon the fetus, is also an invasive and brutally painful procedure on the woman’s body, leaving physical and emotional scars.

Finally, there has been a linguistically imposed war on the term “pro-choice,” in that many pro-life organizations have interchanged the term with “pro-abortion.” As I stated earlier, abortion is a physically and emotionally difficult act for a woman to undergo and I have yet to meet anyone who is actually pro-abortion. A retraction to the misprint in Sonal Bains’ March 7 op-ed (“Grassroots engagement,” p. 4) is necessary, as it interchanged the terms pro-life with anti-abortion, without crediting the pro-choice movement as being anti-abortion as well.

-Ami Koldhekar, senior