100 Quotes About Abortion

Abortion is a divisive and often painful issue. On one hand, women have the ability to choose with full knowledge and understanding of the consequences. On the other, there’s the unenforced guilt and shame of not having the baby and the resulting loss of a child. There are numerous pro-life and pro-choice arguments for and against abortion Read more

However, we’ve found some of the best pro-choice quotes that show that abortion can be a truly personal decision for everyone involved.

1
In my world, you don’t get to call yourself “pro-life” and be against common-sense gun control – like banning public access to the kind of semiautomatic assault rifle, designed for warfare, that was used recently in a Colorado theater. You don’t get to call yourself “pro-life” and want to shut down the Environmental Protection Agency, which ensures clean air and clean water, prevents childhood asthma, preserves biodiversity and combats climate change that could disrupt every life on the planet. You don’t get to call yourself “pro-life” and oppose programs like Head Start that provide basic education, health and nutrition for the most disadvantaged children.. The term “pro-life” should be a shorthand for respect for the sanctity of life. But I will not let that label apply to people for whom sanctity for life begins at conception and ends at birth. What about the rest of life? Respect for the sanctity of life, if you believe that it begins at conception, cannot end at birth. Thomas L. Friedman
It serves me right for putting all my eggs in...
2
It serves me right for putting all my eggs in one bastard. Dorothy Parker
The human population would probably be way less than a...
3
The human population would probably be way less than a thousand, if ejaculation were not usually accompanied by an orgasm. Mokokoma Mokhonoana
4
More than a decade ago, a Supreme Court decision literally wiped off the books of fifty states statutes protecting the rights of unborn children. Abortion on demand now takes the lives of up to 1.5 million unborn children a year. Human life legislation ending this tragedy will some day pass the Congress, and you and I must never rest until it does. Unless and until it can be proven that the unborn child is not a living entity, then its right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness must be protected. . Ronald Reagan
5
It is recorded in the monastic rules that a monk once performed an abortion on a girl; the Buddha judged his action seriously wrong, which incurred him the highest offense in the monastic rule. A monk committing this kind of wrongful deed must be expelled from the monastic community. The Buddha considered the embryo to be a person like an adult, so the monk who killed the embryo through abortion was judged by Buddhist monastic rules as having committed a crime equal in gravity to killing an adult. In the commentary on the rule stated above, it is stated clearly that killing a human being means destroying human life from the first moment of fertilization to human life outside the womb. So, even though the Buddha himself did not give a clear-cut pronouncement about when personhood occurs, the Buddhist tradition, especially the Theravada tradition, clearly states that personhood starts when the process of fertilization takes place. Soraj Hongladarom
6
The Lord is much like the air around us. The air is all around us, it is everywhere. Even though we can't see it, it is there, we know it is there, because we are breathing. The Lord is everywhere too, you can't see Him, but He is there, we know He is there, because we are breathing. (Page 183) Unknown
7
You don`t have to do anything. Why worry? It`s all god`s plan anyway. Just love everyone and believe. Be a limp-wristed wimp and recruit others to be the same. But, give unto Caesar that which is Caesar`s. When Caesar says drop bombs on christian babies in Berlin, or Muslim babies in Iraq, it`s okay. When Caesar says open your borders to tens of millions of dark immigrants, or to bus your children to jungle neighborhoods, or to accept legalized pornography an the abortion murder of babies, then it is Caesar`s responsibility, not the Christian`s. So don`t concern yourselves. Frazier Glenn Miller
8
She felt the urge to tell him more, to explain about the abortions she had done after the war, and that she hadn’t realised until later, much later, that she had racked up a debt she was still struggling to repay. How could he know — he was just a soldier, he had killed as a matter of principle, but the war babies, the children of rape, had been left to junior doctors, the volunteers in ragged tents on the outskirts of town. Tahmima Anam
9
Reproductive freedom is critical to a whole range of issues. If we can’t take charge of this most personal aspect of our lives, we can’t take care of anything. It should not be seen as a privilege or as a benefit, but a fundamental human right. Faye Wattleton
10
The anti-life of [Jerry Falwell] proves only one thing: that you can get away with the most extraordinary offenses to morality and truth in this country if you'll just get yourself called Reverend. People like that should be out in the street, shouting and hollering with a cardboard sign and selling pencils from a cup. Christopher Hitchens
Some women have been faking orgasms for so long that...
11
Some women have been faking orgasms for so long that they sometimes fake one when they are masturbating. Mokokoma Mokhonoana
I think it’s important that (Roe v. Wade) remain legal...
13
I think it’s important that (Roe v. Wade) remain legal for medical reasons and other reasons. Laura Bush
14
In my view, the pro-life movement at this point should focus on seeking to reduce the number of abortions. At times it will require political education and legal fights, at times it will require education and the establishment of alternatives to abortion, such as adoption centers. Unfortunately, such measures are sometimes opposed by so-called hard-liners in the pro-life movement. These hard-liners are fools. Because they want to outlaw all abortions, they refuse to settle for stopping some abortions; the consequence is that they end up preventing no abortions. Dinesh DSouza
15
The dismaying truth is that birtherism is part of a larger pattern of rejection of reality that has taken hold of intimidating segments of one of the two political parties that alternate in power in our governing institutions. It is akin to the view that global warming is a hoax, or that the budget can be balanced through spending cuts alone, or that contraception causes abortion, or that evolution is just another theory, on a par with the theory that the earth is six thousand years old. Hendrik Hertzberg
16
To restrict or legalize abortion, to allow or forbid gay marriage, a legislator would need to write and pass a law, get it signed by the president or a governor, and perhaps override a veto. A Supreme Court justice need only persuade four other people. If he or she is not internally constrained by the authority of a text, he or she is not constrained. Michael J. Gerson
No woman can call herself free who does not control...
17
No woman can call herself free who does not control her own body. Margaret Sanger
No woman can call herself free until she can choose...
18
No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother. Margaret Sanger
19
The Vatican won't prosecute pedophile priests but I decide I'm not ready for motherhood and it's condemnation for me? These are the same people that won't support national condom distribution that PREVENTS teenage pregnancy. Sonya Renee Taylor
20
Here is the trap you are in.. And it's not my trap– I haven't trapped you. Because abortions are illegal, women who need and want them have no choice in the matter, and you–because you know how to perform them–have no choice, either. What has been violated here is your freedom of choice, and every woman's freedom of choice, too. If abortion was legal, a woman would have a choice–and so would you. You could feel free not to do it because someone else would. But the way it is, you're trapped. Women are trapped. Women are victims, and so are you. John Irving
... motherhood is a game you must enter with as...
21
... motherhood is a game you must enter with as much energy, willingness, and happiness as possible. Caitlin Moran
Abort the thought, save the baby
22
Abort the thought, save the baby Chinonye J. Chidolue
The part of you that's like God is the part...
23
The part of you that's like God is the part that makes a choice. That says, I choose to. Or, I choose not to. That's what's sacred. Willie Parker
24
It was more like an abortion than music, but he got a wildly enthusiastic response from the crowd. Well, we're all pro-choice out here in Hillmont, after all. Frank Portman
25
Abortion should be listed as a weapon of mass destruction against the voiceless. E.a. Bucchianeri
26
Infusing the cultural war with love, respect and empathy is the responsibility of every one who cares about the health and wellbeing of women, our families and communities, and our democracy. Aspen Baker
27
Some women would not have contracted an STD or STDs had they not been on the pill. Mokokoma Mokhonoana
28
I sense him smiling and laughing and looking at me with eyes of a thousand aborted children coming back to rightfully claim their life, to claim the earth. A.P. Sweet
29
However, what I do believe to genuinely sacred - and, indeed, more useful to the earth as a whole - is trying to ensure that there are as few unbalanced, destructive people as possible. By whatever rationale you use, ending a pregnancy 12 weeks into gestation is incalculably more moral than bringing an unwanted child into this world. It's those unhappy, unwanted children, who then grew into angry adults, who have caused the great majority of humankind's miseries. They are the ones who make states feel feral; streets dangerous; relationships violent. . Caitlin Moran
30
When we consider that women are treated as property it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
31
Women and our right to choose were going to be challenged with Ashcroft around. When Bush appointed Ashcroft, I went out and got me four abortions. I stocked up. The doctor was like, 'Listen, you're not pregnant.' I said, 'Hey, just shut up and do your job. I'm exercising my right while I can, dammit. Wanda Sykes
32
Militant feminists are pro‐choice because it’s their ultimate avenue of power over men. And believe me, to them it is a question of power. It is their attempt to impose their will on the rest of society, particularly on men. Rush Limbaugh
33
Feminists have accepted that choice is possible when it comes to a different, difficult subject: abortion. The feminist position (and I agree with it) is that women own their bodies and therefore each woman has the right to choose to get an abortion if she gets pregnant. This is called being "pro-choice". Feminists should be consistent on the subject of choice. If a woman has the right to choose to have an abortion, she should also have the right to choose to have sex for money. It's her body; it's her right. Chester Brown
34
The truth is I don't give a damn why anyone has an abortion. I believe unconditionally in the right of people with uteruses to decide what grow inside of their body and feeds on their blood and endangers their life and reroutes their future. There are no "good" abortions and "bad" abortions, there are only pregnant people who want them and pregnant people who don't, pregnant people who have access and support and pregnant people who face institutional roadblocks and lies. Lindy West
35
In that instance, my body had decided that this baby was not to be and had ended it. This time, it is my mind that has decided that this baby was not to be. I don't believe one's decision is more valid than the other. They both know me. They are both equally capable of deciding what is right. Caitlin Moran
36
The truth, 'stop violence against women' is a truth that is flawed, because it ignores the many forms of abuses of women, and then totally ignores men, children and the unborn. Why the unborn ? Well today, more and more unborn women of tomorrow are having their heart-beats terminated today, because they are female. Unknown
37
Julia supposed that there was also a difference in perspective: 'The practical level was another level down [in 1960s social movements] and not so interesting. I don't know much about organizing, but I feel as though, if the reality of the situation doesn't change people's heads, then nothing's going to change their heads. Marches and those things are not the work of it. The work of it is whatever the work is. . Laura Kaplan
38
Three out of ten women in the United States have an abortion by the time they are forty-five years old. And women who need abortions get abortions, whether or not the procedure is legal or safe, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Blaming women who need abortions through slut-shaming is not only morally reprehensible, it also is medically irresponsible. Leora Tanenbaum
39
The greatest form of abortion is not letting the man put it there in the first place! Onuoha Adanma
40
Aristotle didn't have a problem with abortion, " she says. "Oh, well, good, that's a comfort, " I say. Deborah Meyler
41
I'm pro-choice. But I hope that choice will be life. Rush Limbaugh
42
No, I'm the human here. I'm the life at stake. I'm the one with fingernails, who feels pain. Me. Alicen Grey
43
You create your own reality Allison Scott
44
I am so sorry. That we cannot go back to that moment and get you the help you needed, the information you wanted, the hope and love you craved. I am so sorry about what you’re learning now, what you’re seeing, what you’re reliving. Our culture didn’t let you mourn–we pretend you weren’t a parent, that you’re not. What’s hidden is laid bare. Know you’re loved and not judged. I’m so sorry the law let this happen. I’m so sorry we let this happen. Kathryn Jean Lopez
45
How could a woman who had an abortion not feel guilt or some sense of remorse? How could she justify what she'd done? Whom else could she blame when everyone was telling her it's her choice? Without facing the truth and confessing it, how could she be forgiven Who could she be restored? How could she be free? Francine Rivers
46
If men could become pregnant - or be legally raped, or understand the unsubtle differences between 'yes' and 'no', i am certain you would soon see them change their tune about abortion and the treatment and trivialization of the suffering of rape victims. Christina Engela
47
When we were arguing on my twenty-fourth birthday, she left the kitchen, came back with a pistol, and fired it at me five times from right across the table. But she missed. It wasn't my life she was after. It was more. She wanted to eat my heart and be lost in the desert with what she'd done, she wanted to fall on her knees and give birth from it, she wanted to hurt me as only a child can be hurt by its mother. Denis Johnson
48
Jesus didn't fight against what was wrong. But he fought for what was right. Ricky Maye
49
I want a future abortion conversation known for its openness, respect and empathy, so instead of generating more heat, anger and conflict, I practice pro-voice. Aspen Baker
50
Fear is an abortion of good thoughts Nomthandazo Tsembeni
51
Sometimes while waiting for God's promises to come to pass, we messed up things and go into so many troubles, but God’s mercy has never failed in bringing us out of them all. Bamigboye Olurotimi
52
A man reduced to despair by a series of misfortunes feels wearied of life, but is still so far in possession of his reason that he can ask himself whether it would not be contrary to his duty to himself to take his own life. Now he inquires whether the maxim of his action could become a universal law of nature. His maxim is: From self-love I adopt it as a principle to shorten my life when its longer duration is likely to bring more evil than satisfaction. It is asked then simply whether this principle founded on self-love can become a universal law of nature. Now we see at once that a system of nature of which it should be a law to destroy life by means of the very feeling whose special nature it is to impel to the improvement of life would contradict itself, and therefore could not exist as a system of nature; hence that maxim cannot possibly exist as a universal law of nature, and consequently would be wholly inconsistent with the supreme principle of all duty. Immanuel Kant
53
I have found out the hard way that the path from victim to victory hinges on one word… Choose. Tam Hodge
54
Social justice has to do with issues such as poverty, inequality, war, racism, sexism, abortion, and lack of concern for ecology because what lies at the root at each of these is not so much someone's private sin but rather a huge, blind system that is inherently unfair. Ronald Rolheiser
55
The biggest potential for helping us overcome shame is this: We are “those people.” The truth is…we are the others. Most of us are one paycheck, one divorce, one drug-addicted kid, one mental health illness, one sexual assault, one drinking binge, one night of unprotected sex, or one affair away from being “those people”—the ones we don’t trust, the ones we pity, the ones we don’t let our kids play with, the ones bad things happen to, the ones we don’t want living next door. Unknown
56
A choice of pains. That's what living was all about. Audre Lorde
57
The children we bring into the world are small replicas of ourselves and our husbands; the pride and joy of grandfathers and grandmothers. We dream of being mothers, and for most of us that dreams are realised naturally. For this is the Miracle of Life. Azelene Williams
58
Since, in our societies, a gendered division of labor still predominates which confers a male twist on basic liberal categories (autonomy, public activity, competition) and relegates women to the private sector of family solidarity, liberalism itself, in its opposition to private and public, harbors male dominance. Furthermore, it is only modern Western capital culture for which autonomy and individual freedom stand higher than collective solidarity, connection, responsibility for dependent others, the duty to respect the customs of one's community. Liberalism itself thus privileges a certain culture: the modern Western one. As to freedom of choice, liberalism is also marked by a strong bias. It is intolerant when individuals of other cultures are not given freedom of choice-as is evident in issues such as clitoridechtomy, child brideship, infanticide, polygamy, and incest. However, it ignores the tremendous pressure which, for example, compels women in out liberal societies to undergo such procedures as plastic surgery, cosmetic implants, and Botox injections to remain competitive in the sex markets. Unknown
59
Life without caution is like a car without brake. Bamigboye Olurotimi
60
One thing, Ms. Gray, is forgotten by this tragedy: the embryo is human, not a nonhuman as the Supreme Court declared. Abortion never was about the poor or about women’s rights. It’s an ideology with an agenda–and it’s a profitable business. So, Ms. Gray, I dare say few politicians will speak that truth for fear of political reprisals. I’m not afraid. Politicians and courts made legal what is a morally reprehensible act of brutality. I call it what it is: judicial tyranny. J.W. Brazier
61
So many times the debate of abortion turns to legality. The issue is not legality, the issue is morality. Have you not forgotten? It was legal for Adolf Hitler to place all of those men, women, and children in concentration camps and murder them. Abortion should never be an issue of legality, it is most definitely an issue of morality. Derrick Sanderson
62
And just like that, as if I hadn't said anything at all, the ladies sprang into a conversation about the sinful nature the Jews possessed when killing their Lord Jesus. I didn't know if I was hearing this right because I had become so intoxicated, but I couldn't believe that anyone would talk about religion while on vacation. How could Miss Nebraska think this was a proper environment to discuss something so controversial? One woman went on to say that if she had her way not only would President Bush serve a second four-year term, but she hoped they would overturn Roe v. Wade. This woman was obviously a menace to society and needed to be stopped. Chelsea Handler
63
The statement that 'abortions is a women's choice over her body' is a half-truth, because there are two heart+beats, not one. Teresa Squitti
64
Abortion is not allowedbecause apparently it is against the law of god. Yes, that butter-wouldn't-melt deitywho ordered babies to be slaughtered, killed all the first-born in EgyptAnd caused an entire human race to drown. From: "Gesels van een imaginaire god"( Scourges of an imaginary god) A.J. Beirens
65
Human life is created in God's image, and that makes it sacred. Colin S. Smith
66
A government that kills its own citizens is like a parent that kills their own kids aka filicide or like a mother that kills her unborn by abortion . Youns Hussein
67
Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns in to universal, rather than religion-specific, values.. it requires that their proposals be subject to argument and amenable to reason. Now I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, to take one example, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all. . Barack Obama
68
People often say that abortion is a woman's choice, and they're right;they choose life the moment they have sex. Preston Wagner
69
I don't understand, then, why, in the midst of all this, pregnant women - women trying to make rational decisions about their futures and, usually, that of their families, too - should be subject to more pressure about preserving life than, say, Vladimir Putin, the World Bank, or the Catholic Church. Caitlin Moran
70
I certainly supported a woman's right to choose, but to my mind the time to choose was before, not after the fact. Ann B. Ross
71
No one but me ever put a hand on me to feel that baby. No one wanted to put his ear against it and listen... You shouldn't have a baby if there's no one who wants to feel it kick or listen to it move. John Irving
72
The "right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" begins with "life", and "life" begins at conception. A.E. Samaan
73
Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love but to use violence to get what they want. Mother Teresa
74
A moral judgment of abortion is the usage of a man-made ideology to judge a man-made technology. Mokokoma Mokhonoana
75
A human being becomes human not through the casual convergence of certain biological conditions, but through an act of will and love on the part of other people. If this is not the case, then humanity becomes – as it is already to a large extent – no more than a rabbit-warren. But this is no longer a “free-range” warren but a “battery” one, in the conditions of artificiality in which it lives, with artificial light and chemical feed. Italo Calvino
76
If unconventional ideas = sperm, then public opinion = abortion. Mokokoma Mokhonoana
77
Public opinion is to an unconventional idea … what abortion is to sperm. Mokokoma Mokhonoana
78
My suggestion, then, is that we accord the fetus no higher moral status than we give to a nonhuman animal at a similar level of rationality, self-consciousness, awareness, capacity to feel and so on. Because no fetus is a person, no fetus has the same claim to life as a person. Until a fetus has some capacity for conscious experience, an abortion terminates an existence that is — considered as it is and not in terms of its potential — more like that of a plant than of a sentient animal like a dog or a cow. Peter Singer
79
If a curiously selective plague came along and killed all people of intermediate height, 'tall' and 'short' would come to have just as precise a meaning as 'bird' or 'mammal'. The same is true of human ethics and law. Our legal and moral systems are deeply species-bound. The director of a zoo is legally entitled to 'put down' a chimpanzee that is surplus to requirements, while any suggestion that he might 'put down' a redundant keeper or ticket-seller would be greeted with howls of incredulous outrage. The chimpanzee is the property of the zoo. Humans are nowadays not supposed to be anybody's property, yet the rationale for discriminating against chimpanzees in this way is seldom spelled out, and I doubt if there is a defensible rationale at all. Such is the breathtaking speciesism of our attitudes, the abortion of a single human zygote can arouse more moral solicitude and righteous indignation than the vivisection of any number of intelligent adult chimpanzees! [T]he only reason we can be comfortable with such a double standard is that the intermediates between humans and chimps are all dead. . Richard Dawkins
80
Until we are willing to oppose all abortion-- A L L ABORTION---then the Christian community will lack the true ethical high ground to oppose ANY ABORTIONS. The minute we concede that there is any ground--even in the so-called case of rape, incest or the health of the mother---to make a decision to self-consciously and deliberately kill a child based on our puny, finite understanding of the facts, and a a cost-benefit analysis based on our pragmatic post-modern vision of utlilitarian ethics, we have conceded everything. We have abandoned biblical law and granted to Planned Parenthood the legitimacy of the core argument they have advanced since Margaret Sanger founded the organization--namely, that some circumstances of pregnancy are sufficiently uncomfortable or troubling that man has the right to play God and declare his own authority to take the life of an innocent, unborn baby. Douglas W. Phillips
81
It’s a baby. A baby can’t be without a mother. K. Weikel
82
The Nazis are not justified by s Joseph Bayly
83
I am not a one-issue voter in the sense that indicates I am an ignorant fundamentalist who only cares about one thing. I believe in protecting the environment. I believe in caring for the poor, the orphan, the widow in her distress. These are some of the so-called "issues" that many of us use to justify voting for Obama. How can we possibly claim it is Christian love for the poor and helpless that motivates us to vote for such a man when he is so committed to the killing of the most helpless among us? . Joseph Bayly
84
We had, like I said before... we had to prevent life. We had to kill. It’s as simple as that.” –STEVE MASSOF Ann McElhinney
85
We must not be surprised when we hear of murders, killings, of wars, or of hatred... If a mother can kill her own child, what is left but for us to kill each other? Mother Teresa
86
We do not believe in murder! We believe in convenience in our careers, in our cuisine, in our kills, and in our definitions. Danielle Valenilla
87
If the bringing of children into the world is today an economic burden, it is because the social system is inadequate; and not because God’s law is wrong. Therefore the State should remove the causes of that burden. The human must not be limited and controlled to fit the economic, but the economic must be expanded to fit the human. Fulton J. Sheen
88
About a month after she found out about that, I got pregnant for the first time. I knew I didn't want to have a baby at all, and wanted to get an abortion. But the day I found out, I wasn't sure what to do first. I felt alone and lost and needed someone to call who I could tell. I needed help. I wasn't sure if she would talk to me again so soon after what had happened. I decided to take a chance and try calling her. When I told her, she said, "Well, an abortion is only like $500, so go turn a couple of tricks and get it taken care of, " before she hung up on me. I probably should have called someone else, but I didn't know who else to call. Ashly Lorenzana
89
If you are against abortions, don't have one. Scott Andrews
90
Every single day an estimated eighteen million men gratuitously waste the future of our country, by needlessly ejaculating one hundred million citizens of our country, which had they been born, would have made us the strongest country on the planet. Scott Andrews
91
In such societies it is common for ordinary people to seek out celibate spiritual leaders for marriage, love and sometimes sexual guidance. This strikes me as a particularly stupid kind of folly. Nobody ever asks a vegetarian for a recommendation for a steak house Scott Andrews
92
Annie turned away, her eyes glittering. 'Here's what no one tells you, ' she said. 'When you deliver a fetus, you get a death certificate, but not a birth certificate. And afterward, your milk comes in, and there's nothing you can do to stop it.' She looked up at me. 'You can't win. Either you have the baby and wear your pain on the outside, or you don't have the baby, and you keep that ache in you forever. I know I didn't do the wrong thing. But I don't feel like I did the right thing, either. Jodi Picoult
93
An imaginary circle of empathy is drawn by each person. It circumscribes the person at some distance, and corresponds to those things in the world that deserve empathy. I like the term "empathy" because it has spiritual overtones. A term like "sympathy" or "allegiance" might be more precise, but I want the chosen term to be slightly mystical, to suggest that we might not be able to fully understand what goes on between us and others, that we should leave open the possibility that the relationship can't be represented in a digital database. If someone falls within your circle of empathy, you wouldn't want to see him or her killed. Something that is clearly outside the circle is fair game. For instance, most people would place all other people within the circle, but most of us are willing to see bacteria killed when we brush our teeth, and certainly don't worry when we see an inanimate rock tossed aside to keep a trail clear. The tricky part is that some entities reside close to the edge of the circle. The deepest controversies often involve whether something or someone should lie just inside or just outside the circle. For instance, the idea of slavery depends on the placement of the slave outside the circle, to make some people nonhuman. Widening the circle to include all people and end slavery has been one of the epic strands of the human story - and it isn't quite over yet. A great many other controversies fit well in the model. The fight over abortion asks whether a fetus or embryo should be in the circle or not, and the animal rights debate asks the same about animals. When you change the contents of your circle, you change your conception of yourself. The center of the circle shifts as its perimeter is changed. The liberal impulse is to expand the circle, while conservatives tend to want to restrain or even contract the circle. Empathy Inflation and Metaphysical AmbiguityAre there any legitimate reasons not to expand the circle as much as possible? There are. To expand the circle indefinitely can lead to oppression, because the rights of potential entities (as perceived by only some people) can conflict with the rights of indisputably real people. An obvious example of this is found in the abortion debate. If outlawing abortions did not involve commandeering control of the bodies of other people (pregnant women, in this case), then there wouldn't be much controversy. We would find an easy accommodation. Empathy inflation can also lead to the lesser, but still substantial, evils of incompetence, trivialization, dishonesty, and narcissism. You cannot live, for example, without killing bacteria. Wouldn't you be projecting your own fantasies on single-cell organisms that would be indifferent to them at best? Doesn't it really become about you instead of the cause at that point? . Jaron Lanier
94
Zero cavities. Two abortions. One divorce. Thirty years on Earth. Asa Akira
95
It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish. Mother Teresa
96
It doesn't take two minutes on an examining table for a girl to know that abortion is painful and destructive and it'll have far-reaching effects on her life. Besides the emotional trauma of going through something so violent, there are the physical aspects, the aftereffects. Unfortunately, by the time she's gone that far, it's too late to change her mind. Francine Rivers
97
Two-thirty comes during Testifying. It's Janine, telling about how she was gang-raped at fourteen and had an abortion. But whose fault was it? Aunt Helena says, holding up one plump finger. Her fault, her fault, her fault. We chant in unison. Who led them on? She did. She did. She did. Why did God allow such a terrible thing to happen? Teach her a lesson. Teach her a lesson. Teach her a lesson. Margaret Atwood
98
We also have to consider the many different kinds of rape we have learned about over the past few years as conservative politicians blunder through trying to explain their stances on sexual violence and abortion. For instance, Indiana treasurer Richard Mourdock, running for the US Senate in 2012, said, in a debate, "I struggled with it myself for a long time, and I realized that life is a gift from God, and I think even when life begins int hat horrible situation of rape, that is something God intended to happen." I've been obsessing over these words, and trying to understand how someone who purports to believe in God can also believe that anything born of rape is God-intended. Just as there are many different kinds of rape, there are many different kinds of God. I am also reminded that women, more often than not, are the recipient of God's intentions and must also bear the burdens of these intentions. Mourdock is certainly not alone in offering up opinions about rape. Former Missouri representative Todd Akin believes in "legitimate rape" and the oxymoronic "forcible rape, " not to be confused with all that illegitimate rape going on. Ron Paul believes in the existence of "honest rape, " but turns a blind eye to the dishonest rapes out there. Former Wisconsin State representative Roger Rivard believes some girls, "they rape so easy." Lest you think these new definitions of rape are only the purview of men, failed Senate candidate Linda McMahon of Connecticut has introduced us to the idea of "emergency rape." Given this bizarre array of new rape definitions, it is hard to reconcile the belief that women are rising when there is still so much in our cultural climate working to hold women down. We can, I suppose, take comfort in knowing that none of these people is in a position of power anymore. Roxanne Gay
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Once the state starts providing, it feels free to hand out the rules, too! " Larch blurted hastily.."In a better world.." she began patiently." No, not in a better world! " he cried. "In this one--in this world. I take this world as a given. Talk to me about this world! ". ."Oh, I can't always be right, " Larch said tiredly." Yes, I know, " Nurse Caroline said sympathetically. "It's because even a good man can't always be right that we need a society, that we need certain rules--call them priorities, if you prefer, " she said..Always in the background of his mind, there was a newborn baby crying.. And they were not crying to be born, he knew; they were crying because they were born. John Irving
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.. those selling abortion don't want them to have [the facts], " Virginia said heatedly. "Besides the Supreme Court doesn't agree with you. They judges seem to think we poor women would fall apart if we knew the facts, so they decided women don't have the right to know the full truth." She shook her head. "They've made it legal to withhold vital information, even when a woman requests it, for heaven's sake! . Francine Rivers