Speaking of choice…

Here’s an interesting dialogue, of sorts, on life and that old conundrum of ‘who decides.’ It really illustrates how words can be used creatively, to deceive on the one hand, and clarify on the other.

It started with this column by Ellen Goodman of the Boston Globe, on the case of parents caught trying to force their daughter to have an abortion.

SOMETIMES YOU have to remember exactly what it means to be prochoice. Sometimes the word “choice” is more than a focus-group label to avoid saying the word “abortion.” Sometimes the slick bumper sticker — Who Decides? — actually defines the argument.

Sounds good for the lead. Then it descended into an argument against the parental notification laws, and the pro-life movement, among others. And it was misleading.

But the fact is that the Supreme Court protects Katelyn. The same precedents that protect a woman’s right to decide to have an abortion protect her right to decide not to have an abortion. The state can’t decide, husbands can’t decide, and parents can’t decide.

She obviously hasn’t worked in or around an abortion clinic. That was one of the points Diogenes made in his column that sprang from his keyboard after reading Goodman.

Abortion, she intones, must always be the woman’s free choice.

Which demonstrates that Ellen Goodman has never stood outside a clinic and watched the sobbing young women being pushed by angry boyfriends, the teenagers shaking their heads as embarrassed mothers drag them toward the door…

But some of the comments on that Diogenes post come from people who have.