Pro-Life = folks that see abortion as murder.

Pro-Choice = folks that see abortion as a woman’s choice and not murder.

I don’t know that I’d read too much into Murphy’s statement — the right uses “pro-life” to describe its position the same way the left uses “pro-choice” to describe its own. It isn’t like he just coined the term.

The problem I have with the term “pro-life” is that it makes it seem as if being “pro-choice” is “anti-life” (which I think is a misnomer). Does being “pro-life” make someone “anti-choice”? I’m “pro-choice” for a variety of reasons, but two primary reasons are because a.) politically, I don’t think the government has the authority to tell a person what they can or cannot do to their bodies, b.) and personally, as a man, I’ll never be in the position of having an unwanted pregnancy in my body, and don’t believe I or anyone else has the right to force someone to carry that pregnancy to term.

I’m absolutely in favor of programs — private or government based — to encourage couples faced with an unwanted pregnancy to look at adoption as a preferably option to abortion; I’m in favor of sex-education so that individuals experimenting with sex will have the knowledge and opportunity to do so in a safe manner; I’m not opposed to encouraging abstinence, but I don’t think encouraging abstinence and hoping people won’t have sex is ridiculous – encouraging abstinence should be a part of a program of sexual education, “Put the condom on the bannana. By the way, don’t have sex until you’re at least thirty.”

Furthermore, I think Murphy is right about Giuliani. Giuliani is a great crossover candidate … in certain states: he’s a moderate Republican who is receptive to gay rights and pro-choice. A lot of blue-staters and a lot of die-hard Democratic voters would fall into his camp. For those same reasons, a lot of red-staters and die-hard members of the Religious Right would stay as far away as possible. While I don’t think being pro-choice is quite the vote killer in certain Republican-voting communities (primarily, the libertarian ones), I think he’d have a really tough time getting the Republican base behind him.

An eye-opener from The Bull Speaks. I concur!…