[Ads-l] More Re: "Pro-Choice" Was a Reaction to "Pro-Life"

Sat Jun 4 20:45:11 UTC 2022

The OED lists a 1969 citation for “pro-choice”, but the citation
appears to be incorrect as highlighted by Fred. The second citation in
the OED is dated April 25, 1973. This note is about a possible
antedating.

An instance of “pro-choice” appears in a newspaper dated  March 22,
1973 within a letter to the editor. Barry Popik clipped this letter
(and others) back on January 20, 2020, but I cannot find an entry on
his website referring to this citation.

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/42681855/pro-life-pro-choice-on-abortion-1973/

The letter writer states that he is “pro-choice”. The meaning seems a
bit broader than some modern uses of “pro-choice”. Nevertheless, some
might accept this citation for “pro-choice”.

The use is ambiguous. The writer apparently supports the right of a
pregnant person to request an abortion, and he supports the right of a
physician to perform an abortion. He also supports the right of a
physician to decline to perform an abortion. Further, he supports the
right of a medical facility to decline to perform abortions.

All these rights are combined under the banner “pro-choice.” Here is
an extended excerpt:

Date: March 22, 1973
Newspaper: Pittsburgh Press
Newspaper Location: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Section: Letters To the Editor
Article: Abortion Voluntary Under Court Ruling
Letter Author: Roger Johnson (Squirrel Hill)
Quote Page 30, Column 4 and 5
Database: Newspapers.com

[Begin excerpt - double-check for typos]
The editorial failed to recognize the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling that
the decision to request an abortion rests solely with the women and
the decision to perform an abortion rests solely with the physician.

The rights of both parties are protected.

"If that decision is reached," wrote Justice Blackmun, "the judgment
may be effectuated by an abortion free of interference by the state."

Furthermore, the court said, "Prior to the end of the first trimester
of pregnancy, the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left
to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman's attending physician."

Thus, the court dismissed any notion that a physician could be
subjected to performing abortions on demand.

Similarly, it would seem that no medical facility could be compelled
to perform abortions against its policy. This is as it should be, both
ethically and medically.

One cannot be pro-abortion anymore than one can be pro-appendectomy.

As a pro-choice advocate, I vehemently oppose any attempt by the state
to force physicians or facilities to perform surgical procedures that
they are opposed to orally or unable to handle medically.

ROGER JOHNSON
Squirrel Hill
[End excerpt]

On Sat, Jun 4, 2022 at 10:19 AM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> There is a piece of the puzzle that I left out of my previous email.  The earliest valid citation for "pro-choice," as far as I know, is the 1973 citation in the OED, which was contributed to them by me some years ago.
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu>
> Sent: Saturday, June 4, 2022 10:09 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject: "Pro-Choice" Was a Reaction to "Pro-Life"
>
> I was William Safire's primary source for information about word-histories, and I have a higher regard for him (linguistically but not politically) than most students of language.  However, I have long taken issue with his statement that the term "pro-choice" preceded the term "pro-life."  To me the pro-life-before-pro-choice chronology rings true on a semantic basis, with "pro-life" being a more basic term and "pro-choice" a more imaginative one reacting to the earlier slogan.  If one does as much research on word-coinages as I have, one develops a sense of the rhythms of neologization.
>
> Therefore I was surprised to realize that the OED "pro-choice" first use citation was dated 1969, whereas no one has found a clearcut use of "pro-life" meaning "anti-abortion" prior to 1970.
>
> However, my theory (also the theory of many students of feminist history) is borne out by the citations.  The OED's 1969 "pro-choice" citation is said by them to come from the Oxnard (Cal.) Press-Courier, Dec. 10, 1969, page 7.  However, Newspaperarchive has that issue and page, and there is no use of "pro-choice" on the page.  A Newspapers.com search does retrieve the exact same words as those in the OED citation, from two California newspapers dated Dec. 10,, 1989, so clearly the OED citation is a mistake.
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Colin Morris <colin at CS.TORONTO.EDU>
> Sent: Friday, June 3, 2022 4:33 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject: re-antedating of "pro-life"
>
> A couple years back Fred Shapiro shared a 1969 quote for "pro-life" (OED's
> earliest quote being from 1971):
> https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flistserv.linguistlist.org%2Fpipermail%2Fads-l%2F2020-January%2F156379.html&data=05%7C01%7Cfred.shapiro%40YALE.EDU%7C14522d8805194249169c08da45a065c9%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C637898852843908427%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=0HllMpwD4giGo3WMgG5GtT0B2k%2FST0qi7UZt71wb7K4%3D&reserved=0
>
> Unfortunately, it seems this was a case of bad newspapers.com metadata. The
> quoted article was from 1989, which was mis-OCR'd as 1969.
>
> However I was able to find a genuine 1970 antedating from the May 6 issue
> of The Ottawa Journal, also via newspapers.com: "Philip Cooper said he
> preferred to describe the group he belongs to as pro-life rather than
> anti-abortion. The organization believes human life exists from the moment
> of conception and that any attempt to destroy that life is a crime."
>
> In case anyone is interested, I wrote up a little blog post about the
> origins of "pro-life" and "pro-choice" (and the question of which came
> first), here: https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcolinmorris.github.io%2Fblog%2Fprolife-antedating&data=05%7C01%7Cfred.shapiro%40YALE.EDU%7C14522d8805194249169c08da45a065c9%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C637898852843908427%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=8HYtQh7CiM%2FIbvMgrMlzHIVI4iDS60DeFvbZFvqy5os%3D&reserved=0
>
>
>
>
>
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