namkcuR
ONE love, blood, life
Using the word "murder" isn't smug. It's actually a sober reality.
You're speaking of murder as an action with a simple definition and end result, even though know very well that people are getting more from that word then that. The way people are reading it, it speaks of the intent, will, and feeling of women who have abortions. You know very well that when you say "...even wondering whether the right to control one's own body includes the right to commit murder", you are painting a picture of all women who choose to have abortions as callus, feeling-less people who have abortions for their own personal amusement. It seems like a lot of anti-abortion people paint a picture of a world where women who get abortions are either sixteen year old not-the-sharpest-tool-in-the-shed types who have had unprotected sex with their high school boyfriend and then immediately upon discovering the pregnancy ask their parents to drive them to the nearest clinic, or high-powered career types who just can't be bothered by an unexpected pregnancy. The point here is that the world is grey. You, nor I, have any way of knowing the circumstances that surround each abortion or potential abortion. But I would wager money that there are very few women who giggle on the way to the clinic and then go about their merry way afterwards. I would wager money that very few women get any enjoyment out of abortion, and that very few do so without being very emotional about it before and/or after, and that very few women don't still think about it years and years later. They're not all murderous monsters. So it's not that people are disputing the sterile, textbook definition of what abortion it is, it's that people are disputing the connotations about the people who have abortions that you make you when you use the word murder.