They said it.
Pro-choice activist Ginette Paris:
“[abortion is] an expression of maternal responsibility …..[A woman must] sacrifice [the unborn] to a higher cause, namely, the love of children and the refusal to see them suffer.”
Ginette Paris, The Sacrament of Abortion (Dallas: Spring, 1992) 8, 107
In the 1994 issue of Mother Jones, D Redman had a chemical abortion. She said, when the blood began:
“At last, the blood I’ve been praying for. I look at the other women around me and think how glorious we are in our rebellion… My life feels luxuriant with possibility. For one precious moment, I believe that we have the power to dismantle the system. I finish the march, borne along by the women.”
D Redman, “The Choices,” Mother Jones, January/February 1994: 35
“[I]n the relevant respects, a fetus, even a fully developed one, is considerably less personlike than is the average mature mammal, indeed the average fish… [I]f the right to life is based upon [the unborn’s] resemblance to a person, then it cannot be said to have any more right to life then, let us say, newborn guppy.”
Mary Anne Warren, “On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion,” Ethical Issues in Modern Medicine, editors John Arras and Robert Hunt (Palo Alto, CA: Mayfield, 1977) 172 – 173
“I probably hopped out of the chair and started screaming and pacing. I was very, very angry.”
Debbie McKenney, chair of Pittsburgh NARAL Pro-Choice America, on what she did when she saw a commercial about adoption
Marvin Olasky,” The War on Adoption,” National Review, June 7, 1993
Dr. Thomas Darrow, Christian abortionist:
“When I felt the world was going against me, or perhaps I should try to go with the flow a bit more, as a Christian, as a follower of Jesus Christ, I started studying his life and really Jesus Christ did not go with the flow.… So when I think about that, it [the decision to provide abortions] almost becomes a religious experience, it really does.”
Carole Joffe. Doctors of Conscience: the Struggle to Provide Abortion before and after Roe Versus Wade (Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon press, 1995) 179
Dr. James Pendergraft, who does abortions up to 28 weeks:
“I have read the Bible. I go to church. I don’t read in the Bible what (abortion protesters) read, I know morally what I am doing is right. If a woman doesn’t want to be a mother, she shouldn’t have to be.”
St. Petersburg Times, Dr. Determined: 12-16-1998, Quoted by Life Dynamics
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Dr. James Pendergraft, who performs abortions up to 28 weeks:
“If you want to do a business right, you’ve got to show people you’re proud… If I were hiding or hanging my head, women wouldn’t feel proud coming to me, and they should – this is a moral choice for a woman who does not want to be a mother… We’re talking about a woman’s constitutional right. Anyone who doesn’t like the Constitution should get the hell out of the country…”
Cynthia Barnett “The Specialist” Florida Trend Archives June 1999
Minette Doderer, politician in Iowa who is pro-choice
“You know, I don’t like to think about [abortion]. Every once in a while it comes across my mind: why am I doing this, defending abortion rights? Who likes to think of themselves killing a fetus? But then I think: I’m not the one making the decision. Another woman is doing it. And I don’t think that anyone connected with the pregnant woman has the right to do anything but discuss it with her.”
Roger Rosenblatt. Life Itself: Abortion in the American Mind (New York: Random House, 1992) 147
Doderer may be uncomfortable with abortion, in rationalize her support of it by putting all the blame on the woman herself, but her own actions and votes on legislation are what is keeping abortion legal and available.
From one abortion advocate:
“For a woman to give birth… can be a severe handicap in the workplace..… Few women who take maternity leaves are paid full wages for the time they missed; many find their jobs are not held open for them, or discover that they have been shunted to a less demanding and lower status “mommy track.”
Men, of course, are rarely treated this way. Men who start families may worry about how to feed and clothe their children, but their employers do not fire them simply for daring to bring babies into the world. Neither did they force male workers to take unwanted or unneeded time off nor demote them to jobs deemed suitable for employees more interested in raising their children than in taking on interesting and exciting projects at work.
Thus, the right to an abortion is basic. A woman who does not want to fall victim to discrimination and patronizing assumptions about her wishes and desires must have the ability to enter pregnancy.”
This inequality is a genuine problem, but the answer is not to promote abortion. If abortion is seen as the answer to workplace discrimination, what happens to women who want children and choose not to have abortions? Their situation is not made any better. Due to workplace discrimination, and the fact that we allow it to continue, women are pressured into having abortions that they otherwise may not want to have. This is not pro-choice. A woman who aborts under duress may face a lifetime of emotional difficulties. Women deserve better. The solution to women’s unfair treatment in the workplace is to impose and enforce laws to prevent it, not merely to promote abortion and leave the situation the same.
Stephen Currie. Opposing Viewpoints Digests: Abortion (San Diego, California: Greenhaven Press, 2000) 41 to 42
“God has blessed me with the ability to do what I do.”
Dr. James Pendergraft of Women’s Gynecological Services, who performs abortions in the second and third trimester.
“ABORTION DOCTOR’S SIGN STIRS CONTROVERSY” Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Seattle, WA), Oct 31, 1998 pA3
