pro-choice

adjective

Supportive of a person's right to choose whether or not to have an abortion.

Meanings

adjective

alternative prochoice

  1. public policyethicsSupportive of a person's right to choose whether or not to have an abortion.

    When I defend my pro-choice position in the debate over abortion in our country, I frequently refer to Romania, where pregnancy could be monitored on behalf of the state, and to China, where it could be forcibly terminated.

    2003, Hillary Rodham Clinton, “Prague Summer”, in Living History, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 354
    1 more example

    But if past is prologue, it’s hard to predict what our prochoice Republican governor will do. […] “You’re totally prochoice and bipartisan,” Caroline says in the ad, as they sit together on a park bench surrounded by trees and grass.

    2022 July 26, Shirley Leung, “Charlie Baker is ‘100% prochoice.’ He shouldn’t veto the new reproductive rights bill.”, in The Boston Globe
  2. public policyethicsSupportive of a person's right to choose whether or not to end their life by euthanasia.

    Two other sites worthy of note are http://www.efn.org/~ergo/ (Pro-Choice) and http://www.euthanasia.com (Pro-Life).

    1998, C. G. Prado, The Last Choice: Preemptive Suicide in Advanced Age, page 103
    2 more examples

    These cases help create and sustain an essentially pro-choice regime, at least with respect to passive euthanasia and arguably with respect to physician-assisted suicide as well.

    1994, Tom Stacy, “Euthanasia and the Supreme Court's Competing Conceptions of Religious Liberty”, in Issues in Law and Medicine, volume 10, number 1, page 62

    Whether we are pro-choice on euthanasia or anti-euthanasia, we can all agree that leaving patients in pain is abhorrent, ethically, and morally reprehensible, and should be punished severely by the law.

    2014, Margaret Somerville, Death Talk: The Case Against Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide, 2nd edition, McGill-Queen's University Press, →ISBN, →OCLC
  3. Supportive in general of a person's right to choose; supportive of self-determination, bodily integrity, and individual sovereignty.

    Individualism, self-determination, and pro-choice rhetorics are additional cultural discourses that play into this experience as well: the ability to make your own choices in life and to be able to succeed with those choices is the quintessential American dream.

    2010, Sara Hayden, Contemplating Maternity in an Era of Choice, page 102

Synonyms & antonyms

Opposite

adjectiveadvocating a woman's right to control her own body (especially her right to an induced abortion)

Opposite
Also see

Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.

Origin

  1. Proto-Indo-European*per-der.?
  2. Proto-Indo-European*pér
  3. Proto-Indo-European*pró
  4. Proto-Italic*prō
  5. Latinprō
  6. Englishpro-
  7. Englishchoice
  8. Englishpro-choice

From pro- + choice.

Full word history & related roots →

Translations

French pro-choix
  • pro-choixsupportive of abortion rights
Polish pro-choice
  • pro-choicesupportive of abortion rights
Cite this entry
APA

pro-choice. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pro-choice

MLA

“pro-choice.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pro-choice. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “pro-choice,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pro-choice.

Source: pro-choice on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.