Pro-choice
Pro-Choice is the preferred self-description of people who believe that a woman should have the freedom to terminate a pregnancy by having an abortion if she does not want to have a baby. The term itself literally refers to the idea that pregnancy (or, conversely, termination of pregnacy) should be the choice of the pregnant woman in question.
The Oxford English Dictionary lists the term's usage at least as early as 1975, around the time when the question of the legality of abortion became increasingly discussed after Roe v. Wade (the term "choice" is used to describe options towards abortion in the case as well).
Within the term of Pro-Choice exists a spectrum of political opinion, ranging from the idea that all abortions, under any circumstances, should be legal, to the idea that only abortions in certain circumstances should be legal (such as pregancy by rape or incest), or that abortions should only be legal until a certain date in the progression of the pregnancy (such as the third trimester, which is generally given as the date that a fetus could survive outside of the body).
People who believe the opposite refer to themselves as Pro-Life. NARAL Pro-Choice America is the leading pro-choice advocacy and lobbying group in the United States, though all of the major feminist organizations are involved in the issue on the pro-choice side as well.
It is a loaded term: it contains the connotations that people who oppose the political opinions it describes are against "choice", which is a highly valued concept in the United States and Western world. Both "Pro-Life" and "Pro-Choice" are examples of political framing: they are terms which purposely try to define their philosophies in the best possible light, while by definition attempting to describe their opposition in the worst possible light (being anti-life or anti-choice).
See also
Other possible meanings
Pro-choice can also refer to support of a right to choose on many other issues, including suicide, the recreational use of drugs, topfree equality, and, in the United States, the "school choice" movement or the movement to allow workers to out opt out of Social Security.
