They said it.
“I perform abortions because of my religious belief. I would feel I wasn’t living up to my Christian responsibility if I saw the need to not offer an answer to that need. We have a saying among Presbyterians that God alone is Lord of the conscience.”
Abortionist James Armstrong, in the 1990’s film Whose Choice?
A message from a pro choicer received by prolifer Carolyn Gargaro:
“Many of us consider an abortion no more important than a bad cold”
Subject line: Abortion not = murder
Below: Unborn baby at nine weeks. Before and after abortion
The following interview is excerpted from a film produced by The Alan Guttmacher Institute, which was then affiliated with Planned Parenthood. It is an interview with Canadian late-term abortionist Dr. Henry Morgentaler. There are pictures of abortions similar to the ones done by Morgentaler in his long career. The pictures are there to show the irony of the abortionists words.
Interviewer: You have been talking very logically and very calmly, but are there times when you lose your temper at this situation?
Morgentaler: Yeah, there are times when I lose my temper when, uh, I get really, um, indignant about the kind of contempt for human life that the other side shows. The kind of intolerance and dogmatism. Where, they want to impose their kind of so-called morality on everybody. And I think this is one issue where I feel very strongly about it, on our side we have all the light, on the other side they have all the darkness. On our side you have respect for individual rights. You have the concern for the safety, the health and life of people. You have respect for freedom of religion and conscience. Whereas on the other side you have a dogmatic kind of beliefs which does not take into account either the health or the safety of people involved, [the pro-life side] has a contempt for the health and life of women needing abortions. Has a complete disregard for the opinions of others…..
We live in a pluralist society. Let everyone decide on this issue as a matter of his conscience, his religious beliefs. Of his or her philosophy of life. And I get very upset when people show this kind of fanaticism, this kind of intolerance, and this kind of insulting contempt for others, of the rights of others.
Interviewer: Now, there are a group in Canada called the right to lifers. Have they, uh, been in contact with you in any way?
Morgentaler: yes, they’ve tried to make my life as miserable as possible. By the way we don’t call the pro-lifers, we call them CCPs, and that stands for Crusaders for Compulsive Pregnancy. Or we call them fetus fetishists because that’s a very good description of what they’re standing for. We are actuallythe people who are pro-life, we are for the right of women and couples to determine what their life is going to be like. Whether they’re going to have children or not, how many children they’re gonna have. Whether they should use birth control methods or not. Now, the so-called CCP’s have done everything they could, they have, uh, written circular letters denouncing me, vilifying me, they of organized demonstrations outside my clinic, which lasted for about two weeks, with, uh, gory signs –
Interviewer: What sort of signs?
Morgentaler: Signs saying here Morgentaler is murdering babies, and every abortion kills a child, things like that, which were very distasteful to me and to my staff, and which were very stressful to my patients. For most patients who come in for an abortion are scared, they are anxious, and on top of that they were met by a hostile group, with signs, telling them as a group that what they were doing was a crime, murder, and so on. So it was a really bad scene at the time.
You can see the video here. At the end of the video a pro-life group has spliced pictures and videos of abortions.
Share on FacebookFrom an email pro-lifer Carolyn Gargaro got from a pro-choicer:
“I’m pro-animal and pro-life, if it can be a good life. However, when there is an undesired pregnancy, there is no reason to have it if it will end up in a trashcan or in prison. If you’re so pro-life, go wait outside an abortion clinic and beg the women who go in to sign papers so that YOU and your almighty god-righteous heart can adopt their child when it’s born, or are you not quite that willing? Animals have no choice. They have no birth control. People keep popping out unwanted children because of idiots like you, which leads to murder, school shootings, drugs and a deteriorating world when people could just have abortions and prevent it. People seem to have no problem stuffing down a hamburger which came from a cow which was murdered, but god forbid you have an abortion. I guess in your opinion it’s okay to kill non-human animals, right?”
You can read this and other feedback from pro-choicers here.
Two abortion protesters went to a clinic to educate women entering. They held graphic signs of aborted children. Whether you agree with this type of picketing or not (and I agree that a case can be made against it) it is notable that the local paper misled its readers as to the pair’s activities. From the article:
“It was erroneously implied that Dorothy and Judy are displaying graphic images to elementary school students located “right around the corner,” however the signs are on the 3300 block of 67th street and the school is at 6901 Nashville, over half a mile away….
The news coverage said:
Tony Thornton, CEO of Planned Parenthood, which is not affiliated with the abortion clinic, was also interviewed. He said he doesn’t care which side of the fence people are on, “I don’t think children should be subjected to this, the protesters have a target audience and it shouldn’t be the children.”….
Of course the target audience was not the children. But the newspaper apparently did not care about accuracy.
The news reporter finished her story by saying, “Some cities have ordinances against protesting on school grounds, but this isn’t the case in Lubbock.”…
Dorothy Boyett, has contacted the station demanding a retraction. “This broadcast left viewers with the impression that we were actually on school grounds” she told a representative of the station. “We have never gone to an elementary school and have no plans to do so. The signs save babies’ lives…”
Source: Dorothy Boyett “Lubbock prolifers accused of targeting children by local media” August 30, 2004
Share on Facebook“The author of the original equal rights amendment (1923) opposed the later trend of linking the ERA with abortion. A colleague recalls her saying:
“Abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women.”
This was Alice Paul
Quoted in “Pro-Woman, Pro-Life” by Feminists for Life of America
Share on FacebookACLU leader Norman Dorsen:
“Financing abortions for the poor is far less expensive than the cost of childbirth and welfare support for unwanted children,” he wrote. “So the government is actually paying out your tax dollars to force poor women to become mothers.”
Brief for Appellees at 185, Harris v. McRae, 448 U.S. 297 (1980); and Norman Dorsen, ACLU Campaign for Choice fund-raising letter to “Dear Friend,” n.d. [received by the writer on 29 Sept. 1979].
Mary Meehan Human Life Review, Spring 2001, Vol. 27 Issue 2, p49, 25p
Share on Facebook“The context of abortion practice, while it may occur with a backdrop of social and political controversy, is eminently medical. It is medical because women can die from pregnancy, and it is medical because they can die from abortion.”
Warren Hern Abortion Practice (Philadelphia: J Lippincott, 1990)2
Share on Facebook“The woman is the patient and the fetus is the problem.”
Dr. George Tiller, late term abortionist
Videotape produced by Tiller in 1996 for patients considering abortion for fetal abnormality
(Clinicquotes opposes all anti-abortion violence)
Giving the reason why the surviving siblings of an aborted baby may feel grief and guilt, particularly when the abortion is done after the third or fourth month:
“In the presence of prenatal life, young children do not separate the concept of “fetus” from the concept of “baby”. The conceptual difference between the two is a medical and social construct of adults and is not easily understood by children whose approach to the world is concrete.”
Furlong R M, Black R B. Pregnancy Termination for Genetic Indications: the Impact on Families. Social Work in Healthcare 1984, Fall; 10 (1): 17 – 34
Elizabeth Ring-Cassidy and Ian Gentles. Women’s Health after Abortion: The Medical and Psychological Evidence Second Ed (Toronto, Canada: The deVeber Institute for Bioethics and Social Research, 2003) 164
Share on Facebook