You (and a number of other outraged individuals on this thread) have argued that urging a woman to have an abortion is anti-choice. I want someone, anyone, to demonstrate to me how arguing in favor of a particular action reduces the choices available to the audience.
Let's clearly separate the two issues that tali89 is attempting to conflate here. And let's drop the general in favour of the particular, since that is where this bee in his bonnet started.
Issue 1: If a father urges his daughter to have an abortion, is that anti-choice?
Issue 2: does a father arguing in favour of an abortion reduce the choices available to his daughter, whom he is saying should have an abortion?
Let's revisit once more the meaning of the verb "to urge".
dictionary.com says:
1. to push or force along; impel with force or vigor
2. to drive with incitement to speed or effort
3. to press, push, or hasten (the course, activities, etc.)
4. to impel, constrain, or move to some action
5. to endeavor to induce or persuade, as by entreaties; entreat or exhort earnestly
6. to press (something) upon the attention
7. to insist on, allege, or assert with earnestness
8. to exert a driving or impelling force; give an impulse to haste or action
9. to make entreaties or earnest recommendations
10. to press arguments or allegations, as against a person, action, or cause
I have listed a number of meanings here. The bolded ones are the ones that apply to the abortion situation we are discussing; other meanings of "urge" are different kinds of usage (for example, compare "I urge caution in this situation" with "I urge you to have an abortion").
Other dictionaries define "to urge" along the same lines. Example definitions: "to solicit or entreat", "to
strongly advise or
try to
persuade someone to do a
particular thing", or (from what I regard as my personally most authoritative dictionary of English) "
to try earnestly or persistently to persuade (someone) to do something".
Given all these definitions, I think it is fair to say that when a father
urges his daughter to have an abortion he is trying earnestly or persistently to persuade her to have an abortion.
Let's deal with issue 2 first, since it's the easy one, and because it's a red herring introduced by tali89 that did not come up in the original discussion. Does the father's arguing in favour of an abortion reduce the choices available to his daughter? Answer: no. Clearly she retains the possibility of choosing either to have an abortion or not to have one.
One brief note on issue 2. Notice how tali89 asks whether it "reduce the choices". This is either unintentionally or deliberately obfuscatory, because "reducing the choices" might mean "reducing the
number of choices" or it might mean "reducing the
quality of the choices". I have assumed that tali89 was referring merely to the
number of choices. If that is incorrect, and he was in fact referring to the
quality of the choices available - in terms of the relative attractiveness of each possible course of action and so on - then I would argue that the father's urging does indeed "reduce the choices". But let's deal with that in the context of issue 1.
And now issue 1, which is the real issue of contention and the one that tali89 has already been walked though several times, though not quite this painstakingly. Is the father's urging his daughter to have an abortion anti-choice?
Since we are talking about abortion here, we note that the term "pro-choice" has a specific meaning in this particular context. In the context of abortion, "pro-choice" means that a woman who is pregnant has a
free choice to decide whether to have an abortion or not. "Anti-choice" in the context of the current discussion therefore would mean that the women does not have a free choice. That could be because the right to choose is taken away from her (e.g. by law) or because she is pressured in one way or another to make a choice one way or the other. Most often, the pressure comes from proponents of the so-called "pro-life" position, who try to exert social pressure on women not to have abortions even where they are legal. On the other hand, it would be very rare for a "pro-choice" proponent to try to exert pressure on a woman to have an abortion because this goes against the whole idea of "pro-choice" as defined.
Now, the father in the given example is earnestly or persistently trying to persuade his daughter to have an abortion. Is he exerting a social pressure on his daughter or not? Well, it depends on the relationship. Hypothetically speaking, it could be that, in this particular case, the daughter is largely estranged from the father and gives his opinions little or no weight. In that case, whatever he says is unlikely to sway her decision and she may shrug off his earnest and persistent attempts at persuasion.
However, we are told that this daughter has a good relationship with her father, and so has taken time to sit down with her father and
listen to his persistent attempts to persuade her to have an abortion. Therefore, unless there is good reason to assume otherwise (which there isn't, as far as we know), it seems that this father is in a position of some influence over his daughter emotionally or in terms of power imbalance or in some other social sense. Thus, the daughter is likely, as a result of the father's persistent entreaties, to feel emotional and social pressure to comply with the father's wishes and to have the abortion. The practical outcome of this is that it reduces her
freedom of choice, even if it does not reduce the
number of choices available (which are, after all, only two).
The pro-choice position is that the daughter should have a
free choice to decide what is best for her in this situation. If she is doing so under duress (emotion, social, implied threat, etc.), then her choice is no longer truly free. Thus we conclude that the father's urging is anti-choice.
I trust this puts an end to this particular debate.