quotations about abortion
Many people are very, very concerned with the children in India, with the children in Africa where quite a number die, maybe of malnutrition, of hunger and so on, but millions are dying deliberately by the will of the mother. And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace today. Because if a mother can kill her own child -- what is left for me to kill you and you kill me -- there is nothing between.
MOTHER TERESA
Nobel Lecture, Dec 11, 1979
It is always the moralists who do the most harm. Abortion is the logical outcome of civilization, only the jungle gives birth and moulders away as nature decrees. Man plans.
MAX FRISCH
Homo Faber: A Report
We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life -- the unborn -- without diminishing the value of all human life.
RONALD REAGAN
Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation
Either you can subscribe to the American creed which says that God endowed us with our rights, or you can subscribe to the abortion creed which says that those rights are the consequences of our mother's will.
ALAN KEYES
speech at Southern Methodist University, Feb. 24, 1997
Abortion is inherently different from other medical procedures because no other procedure involves the purposeful termination of a potential life.
POTTER STEWART
judicial opinion, Jun. 30, 1980
Once you pass into the utilitarianism of abortion, where do you go? Why do you kill an unborn child after six months and not old people or not criminals or not just every second person in the world?
VICTOR HEYLEN
attributed, And I Quote
This plague of abortion is the mark of a society that has lost its way; it treats children like garbage. It has come about because of the so-called sexual revolution; abortion is almost a sacrament of that revolution. Sex has been completely separated from its purpose, which is to create life. Our sex-saturated society teaches kids that sex is for fun, for pleasure, for self-expression, or for conquest. Abortion is a no-fault sex insurance policy. This has made a mockery of any attempt at maintaining strong families--the love and responsibility people have toward each other. Now society is full of rampant individualism.
DOROTHY E. MCBRIDE
Abortion in the United States
If, as doctors, we are aware that abortion will just as likely harm our patient as help them, it is extraordinarily difficult to justify our having to refer patients to other physicians who have no conscientious objection.
CALUM MILLER
"Abortion policy is stuck in the dark ages", Catholic Herald, January 13, 2017
We can only hope that their words will encourage young readers to speak up on behalf of the unborn girls whose lives are snuffed out by abortion -- girls who will never have the opportunity to learn, play, compete, laugh or love.
CHELSEN VICARI
"Pro-Life Is Pro-Woman and Abortion Is Pro-Nobody", CBS News, February 4, 2016
Frankly, I adore your catchy slogan, "Adoption, not Abortion," although no one has been able to figure out, even with expert counseling, how to use adoption as a method of birth control, or at what time of the month it is most effective.
BARBARA EHRENREICH
The Worst Years of Our Lives
It thus appears that the mansion of constitutional abortion law, constructed overnight in Roe, must be dissembled doorjamb by doorjamb, and never entirely brought down, no matter how wrong it may be.
ANTONIN SCALIA
dissenting opinion, Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 1989
In the spring of my junior year at Harvard, my period was late. I had been in a relationship for almost two years with a loving and supportive boyfriend. We used birth control, but it malfunctioned. When I learned I was pregnant, I knew immediately and without question that I wanted an abortion. I had no desire to be a mother at that time -- I wanted to finish college and start my career. We found a doctor in the yellow pages. We went to his clean and respectable office. I had the procedure done with no pain; my boyfriend was with me the whole time. Afterward, I breathed huge sigh of relief and thought to myself, I get my life back! I was grateful that I lived in a country where forced birth was not the law of the land and where motherhood was not a lifelong consequence for a contraception slip. I have never, not for one moment, regretted my abortion. My husband of 20 years and I became parents when we had built a home to nurture our children. Indeed, being a parent has only strengthened my commitment to reproductive justice as access to legal abortion allows children a fighting chance to be born into families that desire them and can support them.
AMY BRENNEMAN
"Amy Brenneman: Why I'm Sharing My Abortion Story", Cosmopolitan, February 29, 2016
The emphasis must be not on the right to abortion but on the right to privacy and reproductive control.
RUTH BADER GINSBERG
Ms., Apr. 1974
Abortion is not a favor for the medical profession to bestow but an obligation for them to perform.
LESLIE CANNOLD
The Abortion Myth
The abortion industry is trying to make it sound like abortion is a joyful experience. But even women who say it was necessary say it was not joyful. It is a grief and a blackness, and it changes you.
ALLAN E. PARKER, JR.
"Eyes on Kennedy, Women Tell Supreme Court Why Abortion Was Right for Them", New York Times, February 29, 2016
Abortion raises moral and spiritual questions over which honorable persons can disagree sincerely and profoundly. But those disagreements did not then and do not now relieve us of our duty to apply the Constitution faithfully.
HARRY BLACKMUN
judicial opinion on Roe vs. Wade, Jan. 22, 1973
A prenatal diagnosis of disability should mean empathy and concern for the child not exclusion or a death sentence. Every life is a gift.
STEVEN ERTELE
"Congressman Chris Smith: Stopping Abortion is the Most Important Human Rights Cause on Earth", Life News, January 20, 2017
Abortion is the insurance against that fate worse than death which is called a family. Our no-fault insurance has removed our responsibility for car accidents, and no-fault divorce has removed our responsibility for marriage accidents; why should abortion not be our no-fault sexual insurance policy that removes our responsibility for sex accidents?
PETER KREEFT
Three Approaches to Abortion
I haven't sorted out the penalties. But I do know, I do know that I oppose abortion. And I favor adoption. And if we can get this law changed, everybody should make the extraordinary effort to take these kids that are unwanted and sometimes aborted, take the -- let them come to birth, and then put them in a family where they will be loved. And you see, yes, my position has evolved. And it's continuing to evolve, and it's evolving in favor of life. And I have had a couple of exceptions that I support -- rape, incest and the life of the mother. Sometimes people feel a little uncomfortable talking about this, but it's much clearer for me now. As I've seen abortions sometimes used as a birth control device, for heavens sakes. See the millions of these killings accumulate, and this is one where you can have an honest difference of opinion. We certainly do. But no, I'm for the sanctity of life, and once that illegality is established, then we can come to grips with the penalty side, and of course there's got to be some penalties to enforce the law, whatever they may be.
GEORGE H. W. BUSH
debate with Michael Dukakis, Sep. 25, 1988
It's safer to have an abortion than to get your wisdom teeth out. Yet in recent years, states like Texas have passed hundreds of restrictions on abortion for the sake of "protecting women's health," and none on dental surgery. Fancy that. Concern for women's welfare, it would seem, is selective.
STAR-LEDGER EDITORIAL BOARD
"Abortion is already safe. Will the Supreme Court please tell Texas?", True Jersey, February 29, 2016