"Christianity has always emphasized the importance of responsible decision making, and nothing is more important than the decision of when, or whether, to have children .... one thing I know from the Bible is that Jesus was not against women having a choice in continuing a pregnancy...Jesus was for peace on earth, justice on earth, compassion on earth, mercy on earth, and choice on earth."

Excerpts from the November 22, 2002 letter by Mark Bigelow, Congregational Church of Huntington, United Church of Christ, Centerport, New York, board member of Planned Parenthood of the Hudson-Peconic and a member of the PPFA Clergy Advisory Board, to Bill O'Reilly of Fox News' "O'Reilly Factor."

9 week abortion

"A baby is a part of you, which leaves the decision of its life in your hands. If you do not feel that you are able to support this new life, then you should have the right to not do so."

Pro-choice supporter, from National Abortion Federation Website, touted as the Voice of Abortion Providers’ site

9 weeks

"This ruling [Roe v Wade], our country's greatest step forward in social and moral progress since the abolition of slavery, must be protected politically by the activism of individuals who write letters to legislators, attend hearings, visit their Congresspersons, and support groups working to keep abortion safe and legal. ..."

Anne Nicol Gaylor, founder of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF). Abortion is a Blessing [New York City: Psychological Dimensions, Inc.], 1975. Downloaded from the Web site of the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) at http://ffrf.org/books/AIAB/ on January 1, 2008.

"Those of us who are pro-choice are also, passionately, pro-life. Most of us love babies, love children, and love our liberty—not to mention loving sex and our right to have it when, how, and with whomever we choose."

Rachel Kramer Bussel, "I'm Pro-Choice and I Fuck", Village Voice, January 13, 2006

11 weeks

"We should not be surprised to find a human fetus looks like us; rather we would be amazed if it resembled an elephant...It is a fact that the fetus is human life, but when do we accept that developing human life as a fellow human being? That question can only be answered according to our individual beliefs."

-- National Abortion Rights Action League.  Looseleaf booklet entitled "Organizing for Action." Prepared by Vicki Z. Kaplan for the National Abortion Rights Action League, 250 West 57th Street, New York, N.Y. 10019. 51 pages, no date.

 “…This is about control of a woman’s sexuality because they can’t stand the idea that we are saying we are *not* just incubators anymore. And we’re not even going to pretend that we are. We’re *not* breeding farms. "

Tori Amos on 'Pro-Lifers' --Hot Press Magazine, 1992, By Joe Jackson

1st trimester

"I'm pro-choice because I couldn't fully enjoy sex were I consumed with worry about the potential consequences. I'm pro-choice for all my friends who've had abortions and gone on to do great things, who are better women for being childless (for now). I'm pro-choice for the new moms and dads I know who were able to actively choose to become parents. I'm pro-choice for all those babies... born knowing they're 100 percent loved and wanted."

Rachel Kramer Bussel "I'm Pro-Choice and I Fuck"

8 weeks

"Myself, I'd as soon weep over my taken tonsils or my absent appendix as snivel over ["My abortions! All five of them."] I had a choice, and I chose life - mine."

Julie Burchill, British feminist and abortion advocate, from "Abortion: still a dirty word" in The Guardian, 5/25/2005

10 weeks

The website "I'm Not Sorry" compiles stories from women who claim not to regret their abortions. Here are a few excepts from some of those stories.

"I am 25, and I have had one abortion. It is the best thing I have ever done.

My husband and I have been together for over three years, we love each other very much, we have a beautiful home, and almost everything we ever wanted. I say almost because we are young, there are so many things we want to do with our lives before we settle in to raise a family. Neither of us are ready to have a child, so we chose to end my pregnancy, we didn't have to discuss this decision for days, it was the right one. I don't believe that I should carry a child to term if I don't want to, people preach about adoption. Not an option. I didn't want anything growing inside me. I didn't want to deal with the changes to my body, my lifestyle, my hormones, my job."

Elizabeth's Story, I'mNotSorry.net

1st trimester

"As the procedure was performed, basking in the supportiveness of the female nurses, I felt I was acting in synch with a grand tradition of women before me."

Greta's Story

8 weeks

“I had a few “friends” in the intervening time period who tried to convince me that I should keep it and put it up for adoption. I honestly didn't (and don't) believe I could have gone through that. It was either have the baby and keep it, or simply not have it….”

Cathy's Story

1st trimester

“What if our mothers had aborted us? We wouldn't have existed. So what? Things that don't exist have no opinions one way or another. To be blunt, it's a stupid and pointless argument and anyone who actually thinks that it's a good one deserves to be ridiculed.”

I'mNotSorry.net

2nd trimester. Legal in every state

"The preservation of life seems to be rather a slogan than a genuine goal of the anti-abortion forces: what they want is control. Control over behavior: power over women. Women in the anti-choice movement want to share in male power over women, and do so by denying their own womanhood, their own rights and responsibilities."

Pro-Choice Author Ursula LeGuin, Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places (1997)

1st trimester

“There should not be the slightest communal concern when a woman elects to destroy the life of her thousandth-of-an-ounce embryo.  But all society should rise up in alarm when it hears that a baby that is not wanted is about to be born.” 

Abortion Advocate Garrett Hardin

1st trimester

"Now more than ever, people who support reproductive rights — and that's most of us in this country — have to hold strong and make our voices heard. So much is at stake — the very lives of women."

Giancarlo Esposito — Actor

9 weeks

“Besides, a fetus is not a baby. With its assault on basic science, including evolution, and its intentionally misleading and grotesque signs, the fundamentalist movement has misled many into imagining that aborted fetuses are cute little babies just waiting to be cuddled....Since there is no way these fetuses could become fully formed, independent human beings except as a subordinate part of a woman's overall biological processes for nine months, declaring that they all should be preserved means reducing women to incubators and slaves to their biology. ..The simple truth is that a woman who cannot control her own reproduction has no more freedom than a slave. And if half of humanity is not free, then no one can truly be free.”

“The World Can’t Wait: Drive Out the Bush Regime” article “Last Clinic Standing” by Sunsara Taylor, 7/13/06

"I am and always have been pro-choice, and that is not a right any of should take for granted. There are a number of forces at work in our society that would try to turn back the clock and undermine a woman’s right to chose, and [we] must remain vigilant."

—Hilary Clinton

First Trimester

“The practice of abortion is unrelated to the status of the fetus - it hinges totally on the aspirations and needs of women...If fetuses did have a right to live, one could make an equal case for the right of unwanted fetuses not to live. This is alien to the anti-choice assumption that all life is precious and should be encouraged and preserved at any cost. In the real world, however, some people commit suicide because they no longer want to live, and others wish they'd never been born..”

Pro-Choice Action Network, "The Fetus Focus Fallacy" Joyce Arthur

"[T]he abortion patient has a right not only to be rid of the growth, called a fetus, in her body, but also has a right to a dead fetus. . . [I] never have any intention of trying to protect the fetus, if it can be saved. . . as a general principle there should not be a live fetus."

Dr. Robert Crist, abortion doctor, testifying in Federal Court in 1980. (From Wikepedia)

"A developing fetus is biologically alive. It grows and changes rapidly, but these characteristics do not make it alive as a person."

Steven Maynard-Moody, The Dilemma of the Fetus: Fetal Research, Medical Progress, and Moral Politics (St. Martins Press: New York) 1995, p 74

"Cherie Blair can call herself a feminist all she likes, but any feminist worth her salt would have made a point of having a termination when she got knocked up the last time. . . "

Julie Burchill, British feminist and abortion advocate, from "Abortion: still a dirty word" in The Guardian, 5/25/2005

"If women were in charge, abortion would be a sacrament ... an occasion of deep and serious and sacred meaning."

Carter Hayword, Episcopalian priest at the 1985 National Abortion Federation (NAF) convention. National Abortion Federation Update, Fall 1985, page 7.

10 weeks

"I, along with countless other people, believe abortion is a positive moral good and a blessing for women. It's an act that empowers them, literally saves their lives, saves their existing or future children's lives, protects and improves their health and that of their families, gives women back their chosen lives, enables them to pursue their career and educational aspirations, improves their economic prospects, allows them to better themselves, gives them a level playing field in the public sphere with men, and enables them to truly attain and exercise liberty and other constitutional freedoms. How can anything that saves women's lives and gives them hope and freedom be "bad"?...Abortion is inextricably intertwined with pregnancy and motherhood - that is, good mothers will have both babies and abortions."

Joyce Arthur, Pro-Choice feminist, Open Letter to William Saletan. "Your's is a "War" We Cannot Support" January 29, 2006. See http://www.prochoiceactionnetwork-canada.org/articles/arthur-saletan.shtml

1st trimester

"For many women, abortion currently acts as an essential back-up to contraception, necessary to enable them to regulate their fertility and plan their families... In this context, it is inappropriate for abortion to be considered as a problem - rather it is a solution to a problem."

"Defending Abortion in Law and Practice" Ann Furedi and Ellie Lee, March 1, 2001 "Pro-Choice Forum" http://www.prochoiceforum.org.uk/comm65.asp

12 weeks

"... having a full set of human DNA does not give the zygote full human rights - including the right not to be aborted during its gestation.

Don't believe me? Here, try this: reach up to your head, grab one strand of hair, and yank it out. Look at the base of the hair. That little blob of tissue at the end is a hair follicle. It also contains a full set of human DNA. ...Your hair follicle shares everything in common with a human zygote except that it is a little bit bigger and it is not a potential person. (These days even that's not an absolute considering our new-found ability to clone humans from existing DNA, even the DNA from a hair follicle.)"

Brian Elroy McKinley, author of "Why Abortion is Biblical" in his essay "Why Abortion is Moral"

This, in actuality, is what Mr. McKinley is defending

"To sentence a woman to bear a child against her will is an unspeakable violation of her rights...Such a sentence represents the sacrifice of the actual to the potential, of a real human being to a piece of protoplasm, which has no life in the human sense of the term. It is sheer perversion of language for people who demand this sacrifice to call themselves 'right-to-lifers.' "

— Leonard Peikoff in his book Objectivism in the Chapter on Government

[Opposing abortion] is the same mind-set that opposes the notion of women working. It's a view that doesn't reflect reality and ignores the concept that women are contributing members of society."

Excerpts from Jane Fonda's keynote speech during the annual Utahns for Choice dinner at the downtown DoubleTree Hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah, on June 27, 2000.

10 weeks

"Pregnancy begins when a woman is comfortable with its beginning. It depends on your own personal views and what you want to believe."

Jennifer Kessell, a spokeswoman for Roberts Pharmaceuticals, the Canadian manufacturer of Preven, quoted in Celeste McGovern. "Marketers of the Preven 'Morning After Pill' Are Engaged in Re-Defining Pregnancy." The Report Newsmagazine, at http://www.report.ca, December 6, 1999. Also quoted in the December 9, 1999 issue of American Life League's Communique.

"Abortion is never a single issue. It is a complex tapestry of all the things we believe about race, class, gender, and justice. It is also about sexuality, relationships, and love."

Pro-Choice activist Frances Kissling, President of Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC), quoted in "The Future of Roe v. Wade: Political." Ms. Magazine, January/February 1998, page 77

"What kind of "respect for life" is it that justifies making women into breeders against their will? The real "disrespect for human life" is the harm done to women, to whole families, and to unwanted children by anti-abortion laws."

Essays by Caroline Lund entitled "Why Abortion is Not Murder" and "Abortion and Respect for Life" in a 24-page booklet entitled "Abortion Rights in Danger!" [New York City: Pathfinder Press], December 1976

13 weeks

"I don't care if you are in high school or the fetus is unhealthy or it's a boy and you want a girl. If you don't want your baby, I don't want your baby."

Copy Editor Carolyn Hax of the Washington Post, quoted in Stephen Settle. "There's No Middle Ground." National Catholic Register, April 25, 1993, page 5

"Personhood begins when the bearer of life, the mother, makes a covenant of love with the developing life within her to bring it to birth. It is in the nature of things that woman creates the 'soul' just as much as she nourishes the body of developing human life."

Abortion advocate Marjorie Reiley Maguire, in the March/April 1984 'Catholics' for a Free Choice (CFFC) newsletter Conscience. Also quoted in Mary Meehan. "The Maguires Bring Abortion Issue to a Turbulent Boil." National Catholic Register, May 27, 1984, pages 1 and 7

"To bring an unwanted child into the world is the greatest obscenity."

Robert McClure, former Moderator of the United Church of Canada, quoted in Blodwen Piercy. "Who Are the ANTI-CHOICE and Why Do They Do What They Do?" Humanist in Canada, Autumn 1989, pages 3 to 5

11 weeks

"Anti-abortionists claim that fetal personhood is a biological fact rather than a theological perspective. However, the fetus is human only in the sense that any part of a human body is human: Every cell carries the full genetic code (a severed hand is genetically human, as well, but we do not call it a person). ... six hundred million sperm are "aborted" in every masturbation or wet dream. ..."

Virginia Ramey Mollenkott. "Respecting the Moral Agency of Women." Educational pamphlet by the 'Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights

Prayer used at a National Abortion Federation (NAF) conference:

 "Greetings, little one.
  Little sister, little brother,
  Great wise ancestor.
  You want to come to our house,
  Maybe you think we would make
  good parents for you —
  Well, the food is short now —
  The winter was too long,
  and the summer too hot.
  We have too many mouths to feed.
  My husband works too hard already.
  We cannot open our home to you now.
  Try again later, little one,
  or find a better place.
  Go in peace now, go in peace."

"No Caption Necessary." Life Activist News [Life Dynamics, Inc.], Spring 1997, page 9

16 weeks

While in the womb, you are in a privileged safe place. In fact your Status is rising all the time. As far as the no-choice crowd is concerned, you outrank your host, the woman in whose womb you are the budding guest. Some no-choice pickets even have posters that put you on a cross, giving you a kind of divine dignity. You are so important that for some people there is no other issue on which they vote. They're called the "single issue" people. They call themselves "pro-life" even though they have a passion for war and capital punishment. These "pro-lifers" particularly love to invade small countries with weak armies, places like Iraq or Grenada. I admit that is a bit weird, but they happen to be in charge right now, so we have to worry about them.

As long as you don't get born, however, you don't have a worry in the world...unless, of course, you are in one of the small countries the "pro- lifers" happen to be bombing.

“Fetus Alert!” by Daniel C. Maguire in The Religious Consultation on Population, Reproductive Health, and Ethics

"There are some cells in my uterus at the moment that aren’t usually there. I call these cells “my baby”, and spend much of my time planning the future that they may have, once they’ve finished developing into a human being. Other women, with similar cells, plan how to remove the cells as quickly and painlessly as possible."

Blog post (Alas, a Blog) "Pro-Choice and Pregnant" July 12, 2005 by Nikki Kiddle:

She goes on to say:

"We all see our bodies differently, and we all give different values to different parts. Some people welcome body hair because of the cultural value it has; others remove it for much the same reasons. A transsexual man could be delighted at the removal of his breasts; a woman with breast cancer is more likely to feel mutilated. The same body parts, but very different reactions.

The cells inside the uterus are just another example. I give mine a very high value and watch their development with delight; other women give theirs a low value and can’t wait to be rid of them. The belief that we both have the right to assign value to our own bodies for ourselves is the essence of being pro-choice. If a woman places a high value on her fetus, removing it against her will is just as unacceptable as forcing a woman to retain, against her will, a fetus she gives a low value to."

"I say to this dude with a "Stop Abortion" picket sign, "I have the answer to abortion: Shoot your dick. Take that tired piece of meat down to the ASPCA and let them put it to sleep."

--Whoopi Goldberg