Category: Pro-Choice Quotes

“Protesting or praying outside women’s health centers by cardinals and other church leaders, no matter how non-violent it appears, offends and hurts women.”

Frances Kissling, President of Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC), quoted in Cathleen Falsani. “Abortion Foes Gather to Pray: Cardinal Bernardin Leads Mass at Chicago Clinic.” Daily Southtown, June 27, 1999, pages 1 and 10

Frances Kissling says that even peaceful pro-life activism hurts women. She ignores the many pro-life people who devote their entire life’s work to helping women deal with their crisis pregnancies. A network of hundreds of crisis pregnancy centers throughout the country help women with practical support and counseling as well as material items and services they need to carry their pregnancies to term. Those who intervene at abortion clinics and do so peacefully have been responsible for steering potential abortion patients away from the abortionist’s curette. Many of these mothers are later very grateful that someone was there to reach out to them in front of the clinic.

“With powerful backing from the Catholic Church and Christian evangelicals, abortion opponents dress themselves up in the moral garb of saints and lambaste the other side as murderers, creating a poisonous atmosphere in which terrorism against abortion providers is not only tolerated but in some circles esteemed as some sort of holy act.”

Washington Post columnist Judy Mann, in the October 28, 1998 issue of the paper. Described in Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. 1998 Report on Anti-Catholicism

One way that pro-choice individuals try to “shut up” pro-lifers is to accuse them of supporting violence. Even though violence is very rare in the pro-life movement and those who have engaged in violent behavior have been roundly condemned by every pro-life group in the country, some pro-choice activists blame pro-lifers for every act of vandalism or violence that is perpetuated by lone fanatics. If all animal rights activists were condemned because of the terrorist actions of a few, if civil rights activists were told to go away because of the actions of the Black Panthers, if Vietnam War pacifists were told that they were all to blame for they handful of bombings perpetuated by extremists in their movement, perhaps it would make sense for the pro-life movement to be as demonized as it is.

And let’s not forget the real violence here:

“There’s a qualitative difference in the nature of their [pro-life] involvement … It’s a life and death issue for them, and that creates a zealousness about it, about their work, that I don’t think is matched quite on our side. The strength of the [pro-abortion] movement really resides in the mainstream view that government has no role in this decision.”

Kate Michelman, President of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARRAL), quoted in Brigid Schulte of the Knight-Ridder News Service. “Abortion Foes Mix Passion, Technology.” The Oregonian, February 19, 1995, page A14.

Having been in the pro-life movement for years, I agree with Kate Michelman. The passion that pro-lifers show for the abortion issue is greater than that that most pro-choice or show – we pro-lifers know the were fighting for the lives of unborn babies – that makes us realize how incredibly important it is to stand for life.

“Who are the opponents of the right of women to control their reproductive capacity, to become equal to men, to acquire safety, dignity and self-respect? The answer lies in fundamentalist religion. …  It is not surprising that most of the opposition to women’s rights comes from fundamentalist religious groups, be they Catholic, Protestant, Jewish or Muslim. … These anti-women philosophies are akin to the fascist, dogmatic movements that resulted in the Holocaust and the Second World War, which claimed millions of innocent victims.”

Canadian abortionist Henry Morgentaler, quoted in “Fascist Fundamentalism.” The Human Quest, September-October 1992, page 23.

Morgentaler is a late term abortionist. Here is a picture of a late term abortion. Morgentaler has his own victims.

“The forces that seek reversal of Roe v. Wade are the obvious product of religious zealotry and misogyny [hatred of women]. There is behind the sanctification of the fetus a scarifying agenda that seeks to deny women our personhood, sexuality, and power over procreation; to divert the all-too-slow march of women of all colors toward self-determination and equality; and to reestablish state power to dictate who is an eligible reproducer and sexual partner. … “

Ms. Magazine “Special Report,” April 1989, page 92.