“When I felt the world was going against me, or perhaps I should try to go with the flow a bit more, as a Christian, as a follower of Jesus Christ, I started studying his life and really Jesus Christ did not go with the flow.… So when I think about that, it [the decision to provide abortions] almost becomes a religious experience, it really does.”
Carole Joffe. Doctors of Conscience: the Struggle to Provide Abortion before and after Roe Versus Wade (Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon press, 1995) 179
Dr. James Pendergraft, who does abortions up to 28 weeks:
“I have read the Bible. I go to church. I don’t read in the Bible what (abortion protesters) read, I know morally what I am doing is right. If a woman doesn’t want to be a mother, she shouldn’t have to be.”
St. Petersburg Times, Dr. Determined: 12-16-1998, Quoted by Life Dynamics
Dr. James Pendergraft, who performs abortions up to 28 weeks:
“If you want to do a business right, you’ve got to show people you’re proud… If I were hiding or hanging my head, women wouldn’t feel proud coming to me, and they should – this is a moral choice for a woman who does not want to be a mother… We’re talking about a woman’s constitutional right. Anyone who doesn’t like the Constitution should get the hell out of the country…”
Cynthia Barnett “The Specialist” Florida Trend Archives June 1999
Minette Doderer, politician in Iowa who is pro-choice
“You know, I don’t like to think about [abortion]. Every once in a while it comes across my mind: why am I doing this, defending abortion rights? Who likes to think of themselves killing a fetus? But then I think: I’m not the one making the decision. Another woman is doing it. And I don’t think that anyone connected with the pregnant woman has the right to do anything but discuss it with her.”
Roger Rosenblatt. Life Itself: Abortion in the American Mind (New York: Random House, 1992) 147
Doderer may be uncomfortable with abortion, in rationalize her support of it by putting all the blame on the woman herself, but her own actions and votes on legislation are what is keeping abortion legal and available.
“For a woman to give birth… can be a severe handicap in the workplace..… Few women who take maternity leaves are paid full wages for the time they missed; many find their jobs are not held open for them, or discover that they have been shunted to a less demanding and lower status “mommy track.”
Men, of course, are rarely treated this way. Men who start families may worry about how to feed and clothe their children, but their employers do not fire them simply for daring to bring babies into the world. Neither did they force male workers to take unwanted or unneeded time off nor demote them to jobs deemed suitable for employees more interested in raising their children than in taking on interesting and exciting projects at work.
Thus, the right to an abortion is basic. A woman who does not want to fall victim to discrimination and patronizing assumptions about her wishes and desires must have the ability to enter pregnancy.”
This inequality is a genuine problem, but the answer is not to promote abortion. If abortion is seen as the answer to workplace discrimination, what happens to women who want children and choose not to have abortions? Their situation is not made any better. Due to workplace discrimination, and the fact that we allow it to continue, women are pressured into having abortions that they otherwise may not want to have. This is not pro-choice. A woman who aborts under duress may face a lifetime of emotional difficulties. Women deserve better. The solution to women’s unfair treatment in the workplace is to impose and enforce laws to prevent it, not merely to promote abortion and leave the situation the same.
Stephen Currie. Opposing Viewpoints Digests: Abortion (San Diego, California: Greenhaven Press, 2000) 41 to 42
“When women ask me how I can perform abortions every day, I tell them that I don’t consider the work to be a chore or an imposition. On the contrary, I’m honored to be part of their decision-making process. It seems obvious that many women aren’t able to imagine how rewarding it is for me to watch a female patient take steps on her path through life—steps that will empower her and make her able to be responsible for herself and her family.”
Suzanne T. Poppema, and Mike Henderson, Why I Am an Abortion Doctor (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1996) 2 Dec. 2006, 122
Kate Michelman, when she heard that the Unborn Victims of Violence Act (a law that would allow separate criminal penalties for killing an unborn baby during an assault or murder) was redubbed Laci and Conner’s Law (after the murder of Laci Peterson and unborn son Connor)
“It’s so crass, so offensive. It’s part of a larger strategy to establish the embryo would separate distinct rights equal to if not greater than the woman.”
Debra Rosenberg “the War over Fetal Rights” Newsweek, June 9, 2003, 44
From Laci Connor’s mother:
“Congress would be saying that Conner and other innocent unborn victims like him are not really victims — indeed, that they never really existed at all. But our grandson did live. He had a name, he was loved, and his life was violently taken from him before he ever saw the sun…..
The Unborn Victims of Violence Act explicitly says that it does not apply to abortion, or to any acts of the mother herself. Having said that, I have no difficulty understanding that any legislator or group opposed to abortion logically would also support this bill to protect the lives of unborn children like Conner from violent criminal actions, I welcome their support… what I find difficult to understand is why groups and legislators who champion the pro-choice cores are blind to the fact that these two victim crimes are the ultimate violation of choice.”
“Abortion is very safe. It is safer than giving birth and safer than receiving an injection of penicillin. Like all medical procedures, there are some risks with abortion, but the risk is comparatively minimal. “
