Germaine Greer, who is pro-choice, said in an interview in the New Republic:
“It is typical of the contradictions that break women’s hearts that when they avail themselves of their fragile right to abortion they often, even usually, went with grief and humiliation to carry out a painful duty that was presented to them as a privilege. Abortion is the latest in a long line of non-choices…”
The New Republic, October 5, 1992 quoted in Rachel M MacNair, PhD. Achieving Peace in the Abortion War (New York: iUniverse, 2009) 115
“It doesn’t matter if the fetus is a person. We too are persons, but you can’t force people to donate blood to save other people. Our laws are set up so you can’t force somebody to give any part of themselves to sustain the life of another person.”
Cyny Recker, director of education for the Canadian Abortion Rights Action League.
Leonard Stern“Abortion Wars”The Ottawa Citizen Sun 28 May 2000
“Quite apart from blowing up clinics and terrorizing patients, the anti-abortion movement can take credit for a more subtle and lasting kind of damage: It has succeeded in getting even pro-choice people to think of abortion as a “moral dilemma,” an “agonizing decision,” and related code phrases for something murky and compromising, like the traffic in infant formula mix.
In liberal circles, it has become unstylish to discuss abortion without using words like “complex,” “painful,” and the rest of the mealy-mouthed vocabulary of evasion.
Regrets are also fashionable, and one otherwise feminist author writes recently of mourning, each year following her birthday, the putative birthday of her discarded fetus.
I cannot speak of other women, of course, but the one regret I have about my own abortions is that they cost money that might otherwise have been spent on something more pleasurable, like taking the kids to movies and theme parks…”
. “Hers” column in The New York Times, February 7, 1985. Quoted in Rebecca Chalker and Carol Downer. A Woman’s Book of Choices: Abortion, Menstrual Extraction, RU-486. Four Walls Eight Windows Press,Village Station, New York, . 1992,
Did the pro-life movement create the belief that women mourn their abortions? Do most women experience their abortions as simple and emotionally benign? Read women’s stories here.
“While opponents of abortion eagerly describe themselves as “pro-life,” the rest of us have had to scramble around with not nearly as big-ticket words like “choice” and “reproductive freedom.” The “life” conversation is often too thorny to even broach. Yet I know that throughout my own pregnancies, I never wavered for a moment in the belief that I was carrying a human life inside of me. I believe that’s what a fetus is: a human life. And that doesn’t make me one iota less solidly pro-choice.”
Eve Gartner, a lawyer arguing for Medicaid coverage for abortions:
“My impression is that people don’t really understand the fact that they will save more money by funding all Medicaid abortions than just paying for life-threatening cases. Twenty-five percent of those people who might have Medicaid-funded abortions have children instead…and then people are paying for pre-natal care, childbirth and probably public assistance for the child.”
Phil Greenberg (Life is a Poor Investment July 31, 1994) “To Life: A Collection of Editorials & Columns on Abortion, Life, and Choice” (Little Rock, Arkansas: The Arkansas Democrat Gazette, 1999) 73
Should the amount of money taxpayers can save determine the value of human lives?
Shane Krouse, MSU sophomore and State News columnist:
“If anything, a fetus is merely a parasitical creature that uses the mother as its host. Tapeworms are parasites that house themselves in the intestinal tracts of humans, feeding off the food the host consumes. Comparatively, a fetus is little more than a tapeworm. It is quite common for humans to annihilate parasites with medications or toxins, so why not allow for fetuses to suffer the same fate?”
MSU State News:Wad of cells does not equate to human life, abortion isn’t murder:7-26-2006
Here is a quote from a pro-choice author who interviewed workers and observed at an abortion clinic where abortions were done up to 26 weeks.
“Denying women access to safe abortion (whether we have been raped or not) is itself a form of figurative, if not literal, violation …. Rape denies us bodily integrity; so does restricting abortion. Both are strategies designed to subjugate women.”
Wendy Simonds. Abortion at Work: Ideology and Practice in a Feminist Clinic (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1996)229
Pro-Choice activist Austin Cline talks about poor women and abortion, and seems to make the argument that it is cheaper for society for these women to have abortions than for them to give birth to their babies.
“The lack of funding for abortions can easily put them out of the reach of poor women who are likely seeking abortions because they cannot afford to care for more children. Ultimately, the state pays more to help these families.”
Austin Cline “Religious Groups Aim to Eliminate Women’s Rights” in Lucinda Almond The Abortion Controversy (New York: Greenhaven Press, 2007) 55
The fact that it is cheaper to kill life then to support it should not be an argument in favor of legalized abortion. The argument reeks of disdain for the poor, saying that it is better for them to kill their children than allow them to become a burden on taxpayers.
