Author: Tech

“[A] metaphor that counters the devaluation of women by antiabortion forces can be found in Alien, that ultimate sci-fi horror story of the reproductive cycle. In the film, the offspring of an unwanted pregnancy is portrayed as an intruder into the last frontier of inner space, resembling a penis with teeth bursting out of the chest cavity in a kind of equal opportunity cesarean. Has there ever been a more graphic statement of the unspoken facts of fertility?… Whatever moral status may be ascribed to an unborn child – alien invader, innocent human being, or a person with a right to life – no one has the right to use another’s body as a life-support system without her consent. It is time to recognize the murder case against abortion for what it is: a stupendous vaudeville of moral folly.”

Paul Savoy, Tikkun, September/October 1993  Tamara L Roleff. Abortion: Opposing Viewpoints (San Diego, Greenhaven Press, 1997) 46

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“… the pro-life movement persists in pretending that aborting a zygote or embryo is the same as “killing a baby.” A small mass of developing cells is not a baby; it hasn’t the neural mass, organization, or experience to have much sentience. For early pregnancy, when most abortions occur, supposing otherwise is far-fetched speculation.”

Byron Bradley Carrier, Human Quest, September/October 1993 in Tamara L Roleff. Abortion: Opposing Viewpoints (San Diego, Greenhaven Press, 1997) 43

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“Despite its capacity to attract major public interest and sustain bitter public debate, abortion is not a serious moral issue. It is not possible to justify, in general secular terms, holding embryos and fetuses to be persons.”

H Tristram Englehardt, the Foundations of Bioethics (New York: Oxford University press, 1986) 242

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“This Mother’s Day I just want to take a moment to honor the amazing mothers who choose abortion. Often, these women face deep stigmatization and demonization. “

May 13, 2011 Mother’s Day Message, “I Had an Abortion” facebook group

https://www.facebook.com/pages/I-Had-An-Abortion/138570696250541

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Glanville Williams, pro-choice activist in Britain:

“Many doctors attempt to avoid what they consider to be the unsavory connotations of the word “abortion” by speaking instead of the terms of “termination of pregnancy.”

Glanville Williams, the Sanctity of Life and the Criminal Law, the 1956 James S Carpenter Lectures at Columbia Law School (New York: Knopf, 1957) 147

Psychologist Robert Lifton, in his book about Nazi doctors at the camps

“The language used gave Nazi doctors a discourse in which killing is no longer killing; and need not be experienced, or even perceived as killing.”

Robert J Lifton, the Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide (New York: basic books, 1986) 445

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Brenda Peterson:

“[abortion is] a sacred act of compassion.”

Brenda Peterson, “Sister Against Sister” New Age Journal, September/October 1993: 143

“Valentin” Falthauser, who killed hundreds of disabled people prior to the Holocaust, explained that for him the:

“the decisive motive was compassion.”

Michael Burleigh, Death and Deliverance: Euthanasia in Germany 1900 – 1945 (New York: Cambridge University press, 1994) 277

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Pro-choice activist Ginette Paris:

“[abortion is] an expression of maternal responsibility …..[A woman must] sacrifice [the unborn] to a higher cause, namely, the love of children and the refusal to see them suffer.”

Ginette Paris, The Sacrament of Abortion (Dallas: Spring, 1992) 8, 107

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In the 1994 issue of Mother Jones, D Redman had a chemical abortion. She said, when the blood began:

“At last, the blood I’ve been praying for. I look at the other women around me and think how glorious we are in our rebellion… My life feels luxuriant with possibility. For one precious moment, I believe that we have the power to dismantle the system. I finish the march, borne along by the women.”

D Redman, “The Choices,” Mother Jones, January/February 1994: 35

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“[I]n the relevant respects, a fetus, even a fully developed one, is considerably less personlike than is the average mature mammal, indeed the average fish… [I]f the right to life is based upon [the unborn’s] resemblance to a person, then it cannot be said to have any more right to life then, let us say, newborn guppy.”

Mary Anne Warren, “On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion,” Ethical Issues in Modern Medicine, editors John Arras and Robert Hunt (Palo Alto, CA: Mayfield, 1977) 172 – 173

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“I probably hopped out of the chair and started screaming and pacing. I was very, very angry.”

Debbie McKenney, chair of Pittsburgh NARAL Pro-Choice America, on what she did when she saw a commercial about adoption

Marvin Olasky,” The War on Adoption,” National Review, June 7, 1993

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