Within the context of the abortion debate, pro-life means valuing life above economic, career, social, emotional, and minor health concerns; and pro-choice means valuing the freedom to abort the gestation of a pre-natal baby over the responsibility to protect the innocent.
The distinction seemed clear, but now some pro-aborts are trying to be clever by labelling themselves pro-life, too! They may be pro-life (even Hitler was pro- some lives), but not within the context of the abortion debate. In context, when a pro-choicer attempts to usurp the pro-life label, the effect is to confuse the language of the debate and to divert attention away from the issue. Instead of contributing to a discussion of principles, the pro-choicer initiates a new skirmish over semantics.
The debate over abortion weighs the rights of pre-natal babies against the rights of their unwilling mothers. To arrive at the "pro-choice" position, one must value more highly either a (high) "quality of life" for the child if born -- which argument is usually brought up as a defensive rationalization, rather than as a conflicting interest -- or a high quality of life for the mother, as measured in terms of prosperity, status, and comfort. Note that the child's assumed quality of life depends entirely on the mother's quality of life. If adoption is considered, then the basis (i.e., the mother's quality of life) of such a prognostication becomes irrelevant. Therefore, the child's-quality-of-life argument is an obvious rationalization for a decision based on the mother's self-interests. If, then, one is characterized by what one values most highly, pro-aborts are not pro-life, but rather, pro-greed, pro-egotism, and pro-narcissism. There is a term for those who value "e;freedom of choice" above the sanctity of the life of the innocent: anarchists.
Let me explain another way. I don't want anyone to finish thoughtfully reading this and go away thinking that they can support legal abortion and still honestly call themselves "pro-life." Suppose your team, the Browsers, is about to play the Gophers in the local Fingerbowl. Someone asks which you want to win. "Well," you reply, "I'm a Browser fan, but I'm pro-Gopher." Come again? If you care, either you want one to prevail, or the other. . . or you want a tie.
It's that way with abortion. Either you value the mother's right to put out a contract on her child to the exclusion of her child's rights, or you value the burden placed on the child by abortion more than you value placed on the mother by a ban on abortion. The closest analog to a tie is a ban on abortions after some developmental stage (e.g., extra-utero viability or the ability to experience pain). Even then, you are letting the same values (quality of life, comfort, etc.) be the deciding factors rather than the sanctity of life: Such a position is not pro-life, but pro-narcissism.
Yes, it is clever for a pro-abort to claim to be pro-life; but those who support abortion in any but the most extreme cases, yet call themselves pro-life, are either trying to confuse us or are lying to themselves. They are clever -- like snakes, I think. By making such a claim, they try to disguise themselves as moderate, to disguise the fact that they do not assign to life the highest value, and to dominate the rhetoric of the debate. An honest pro-abort cannot claim to be both pro-choice and pro-life.