What's in a Name?

I found myself in an email discussion with a couple of friends that, in part, involved a complaint that the main stream media doesn't (or didn't in the past) refer to those in opposition to the current Roe vs. Wade abortion laws as "Pro-Life". Without wading into the morass of the abortion issue as a whole, I'd like to examine the labeling of the two camps.

Here are the most common labels (there are others but they are almost always designed to bash the other side):

Pro-Life - this is what Roe v. Wade oponents like to call themselves.
Pro-Abortion - this is what Roe v. Wade opponents like to call their opponents
Pro-Choice - this is what those who favor Roe v. Wade like to call themselves
Anti-Choice - this is what those who favor Roe v. Wade like to call their opponents

This puts news organizations in a tough position since using any of the labels will offend one or the other side and likely result in calls of "media bias". I don't know what criteria media organizations use but here's my solution: label each faction by the name they prefer. In this case Pro-Life and Pro-Choice. This way each side is only half angry and only over what the other side is being labeled. Its not perfect but if everyone understands the rules, fewer feelings will be hurt.

Without going into too much detail, I think the battle of the labels is illustrative of how the two abortion issue factions are, in many ways, talking past each other while trying to define each side to fit their own views. Notice both sides want to be associated with the positive "Pro" label rather then the negative sounding "Anti" label. Distilling the sides down to a overly simple level, its my view that the Pro-Choice crowd sees life not necessarily beginning at conception and favoring the wishes of the mother over the fetus. While the Pro-Life side sees a human being after conception who's "rights" trump those of the mother. I know that's really simplistic but I only mean to make the point that these are divergent views that really aren't even on the same page.

On more note on the name game. I notice the term Pro-Life is misused by a lot of conservatives who are not Pro-Life but pro-unborn life (only). That is, they oppose abortion but can't wait to execute criminals, start wars, oppose life saving social services and even openly wish death on their political enemies.