Category: Pro-Choice Quotes

Pro-Choice writer Amanda Marcotte has some “choice” words to say about pro-lifers:

“ If they applied their approach to sex when approaching food, they’d be running around jeering at people in restaurants for eating for pleasure, and they’d run ads showing the contents of the toilet after #2 with language suggesting that since poo is disgusting, the practice of eating for pleasure should be ended.”

Amanda Marcotte “Civility? For the Anti-Choice Movement, It’s An Alien Concept” RH Reality Check September 25, 2011

First of all, Marcotte uses a straw man, assuming that pro-lifers are against sex – which is not true. Second of all, she completely misrepresents the reason why pro-lifers use pictures of aborted babies. These pictures are not effective because they are “disgusting”, but because they show the severed arms and legs and crushed skulls of aborted babies. When looking at the pictures, one cannot deny that human life is taken in each abortion. See pictures here.

One pro-choice author said the following:

“To defend abortion with confidence, we must first recognize that institutional opposition to the right is part of a broader campaign to undermine women’s autonomy and equality… Abortion is only one piece of the puzzle.  When this puzzle is assembled, the image that emerges is of a women subjected, not a fetus saved.  For example, it is illuminating that “right to life” leaders generally tolerate abortion in cases of rape or incest.  The fetus conceived by rape is biologically and morally indistinguishable from the fetus conceived by voluntary intercourse.  But in the view of our opponents, the rape victim is innocent while the woman who chooses to have sex is tainted.  For them, it is the woman’s innocence or guilt that determines whether she should be allowed to have an abortion or forced to bear a child.”

“Caitlin Borgmann and Catherine Weiss “Beyond Apocalypse and Apology: A Moral Defense of Abortion” Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health volume 35, January/February 2003

Webmaster’s Comment: I thought this was interesting because it shows a pro-choice interpretation of why so many pro-lifers support abortion when it’s a case of rape or incest.  They pick up on the inconsistency of that stand.  What she says is true that the baby is still a baby whether or not it was conceived through voluntary sex or through rape.

It is also true that many women who get pregnant from rape don’t want to have abortions, and many who have regret it. To read some of their stories, go here.