By Lindsay Christ

A “reproductive rights” activist spoke to students and professors on Tuesday in the Leo Guthart Cultural Center Theater about the language and stigmas associated with abortion.

Rosalind Pollack Petchesky disavowed the terms “pro-life” and “pro-choice,” saying they connote guilt because one cannot be “pro-abortion.” She feels the language gap caters to the anti-abortion rights activists.

The pro-life movement started with the Catholics and was heavily moralistic, she said. Evangelical Christians and other groups quickly joined in, stressing that it was a woman’s destiny to be a mother and anything done to disturb that would be unnatural.

Petchesky began her presentation by showing a segment from “The Daily Show” called “Bristol Palin’s Choice.” In the story, correspondent Samantha Bee interviewed several supporters of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin about her teenage daughter Bristol’s pregnancy, trying to get them to describe the decision to keep the baby as a “choice.” She was met with apprehension and tripped up all of them, with one man finally concluding that “the freedom of choice is different than being pro-choice.”

She spoke briefly on the landmark court cases of the past concerning “reproductive freedom,” but Petchesky quickly moved on to current political matters, saying how she finds it strange how “the idea that someone should be left alone…runs deep within America,” yet so many people are against the privacy of reproduction.

Palin “represents the synthesis of liberal rhetoric and conservative value,” Petchesky said, referring to her staunchly anti-abortion rights beliefs.

Petchesky also spoke about race and abortion. When pointing out that politicians like former Arizona Sen., and 1964 presidential candidate, Barry Goldwater supported his daughter’s decision to have an abortion, she questioned whether white upper-middle income people thought having children out of wedlock was a characteristic of minorities.

“Abortion helped to conceal the secret of white women’s sexuality,” she said.

According to Petchesky, the rhetoric needs to be changed so that conservatives aren’t the only ones who can take words from either side. “If Sarah Palin wants to steal choice, let her have it, because reproduction justice means so much more,” she said.