The pro-abortion group the Association for the Study of Abortion sent out a memo in 1972 where they came up with the term “pro-choice” to describe their movement. The memo said:
“A woman’s conscience may well tell her abortion is wrong, but she may choose (and must have the right to choose) to have one anyway for compelling practical reasons…
What we are concerned with is, to repeat, the woman’s right to choose – not with her right (or anyone else’s right) to make a judgment about whether that choice is morally illicit.”
Memorandum of the Association for the Study of Abortion, Jimmye Kimmey “Right to Choose Memorandum,” December 1972
in Linda Greenhouse and Reva Siegel, eds. Before Roe v. Wade: Voices That Shaped the Abortion Debate Before the Supreme Court’s Ruling (New York: Kaplan Publishing, 2010)
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