Category: Pro-Choice Movement

Former NARAL executive director Karen Mulhauser:

“After the 1980 elections, we had a several day retreat with the board to develop a mission statement … We spent several hours trying to decide whether or not part of our mission should include the phrase “keep abortion safe and legal” or just “keep abortion legal.” There were other groups formed to keep abortion safe, and then we decided to exclude that word from our mission statement. That’s not part of our mission to keep it safe.”

Suzanne Staggenborg The Pro-Choice Movement: Organization and Activism In the Abortion Conflict (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991) 107

Read more on this here.

Abortion clinic owner Norma Goldberger spoke of a conversation she had with a nurse anesthetist in her clinic who told her how about something he did to prolifers outside.

“He said he was so angry that he poured urine from the second floor window onto the demonstrators below. It was childish behavior on his part but he had reached his limit. Since pregnancy tests were done on first morning samples of urine, clinics had a ready supply of urine.”

Norma Goldberger Abortion Confidential: Secrets of an Abortion Clinic Owner (CreateSpace , November 23, 2014) Kindle Edition

In an October 25, 2010 post, the blog JivinJehoshaphat Wrote about a pro-abortion website called “Thanks, Abortion!” The site, now down, allegedly had stories from women who were grateful they had abortions. Interesting to notice the T-shirts that they were selling. Here are two designs:

The first T-shirt implies that women should have an abortion because they might argue with their future children. Children are a pain, so you should abort. The second one is even worse – it shows that these pro-abortion activists know exactly what abortion is. According to their now-defunct Facebook page, Ron Fitzsimmons, former head of the National Abortion Federation, was a fan

Pro-choice author Rickie Solinger  talks about how feminist groups stop talking about abortion as a “right” and instead framed it as an issue of “choice” in order to appeal to the public:

“… Until Roe, most activists claimed that “the right to control whether you’re pregnant or not [was] indivisible from the right to self-determination.”

The rights language, however, did not last very long… In a country weary of rights claims, choice became the way liberal and mainstream feminists could talk about abortion without mentioning the “A Word.” Many people believed that “choice” – a term that evoked women shoppers selecting among options in the marketplace – would be an easier sell; it offered “rights lite,” a package less threatening or disturbing and unadulterated rights.”

Rickie Solinger Beggars and Choosers (New York: Hill and Wang, 2001) 5