Labels, Labels, Why Do We Have to Have a Label For Everything and Everyone

This post is kind of a spin off of another thread I was posting on earlier and we got on the topic of labels. So I thought I would take my post and bring it in here and and some and see what everyone thinks about the topic of LABELING.

I think labels in general are way too constricting and with anything, whether it be abortion or political party, if you chose or are forced to chose a "label" because maybe your values fall into that label's point of view more than the other's, as society often forces us to do, then you also get the enveloped into the entire stereotype of that label, even those you don't associate yourself with.

An example, I come from Massachusetts, a democractically over run state. Anyone who knows about Massachusetts history knows it's one of the most fundamentally Democratically state. I know some very proud democrats who define themselves as pro-live. Democrats as a political party have always taken the stance of pro-choice, but here is the "label" thing. They fall into the democratic label and therefore are accociated with the pro-choice movement, yet they are pro-life.

Or as I have seen if a southerner moves north as soon as they begin to speak they get labeled the redneck, or vice versa and the northerner is labeled a yank. The kids judge the new kid just from their accent because of the stereotypes and labels we as a society have given groups of people. I could go on and on with examples.

I am pro-life because of a situation I went through, but that doesn't mean I am not an advocate of woman's rights. I AM an advocate of woman's health and rights. Being pro-life for me simply means that in my personal values, even a fetus that is not viable outside of the womb, is still a living, breathing growing person. When I went into medicine I went into it with the objective to save lives and I couldn't take a life knowingly. Some say, well you can still be pro-choice giving others the choice to make their own decision. I see where you are coming from and until I went through what I did I was pro-choice, however, I am pro-life because I can not in good concious support a cause that does support something I don't believe in. Yes pro-choice does support a woman's right to choose but as one of the choices that they offer is abortion and for me I can't support that.

I wish the stereotypes of pro-life and pro-choice would not be so dramatized in the media and pitted against eachother. I worry about saying that I am pro-life on any message board for fear I will be labeled some crazy conservative fundamentalist that pickets and blows up clinics. I hope you can see from the thought put into my posts that I am not that way. And I think some pro-choice posters may worried that they will get labeled as baby killers and that is so wrong and un fair also, because it is so untrue.