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A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z (alphabetical by author) |
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“Two years ago in South Carolina, a pregnant woman who was doing crack cocaine miscarried. She was eventually convicted of murder for killing her baby and is currently doing time. Just think, if she had taken RU-486, the results would have been the same, except that no charges would have been brought against her and she’d be a free woman. Let me see if I understand this: If you kill your baby by accident using an illegal drug, it’s murder. But, if you kill the same baby on purpose using a legal drug, it's called an abortion, so it’s OK.”
–An anonymous professor at the University of South Carolina
“In Illinois a pregnant woman who takes an illegal drug can be prosecuted for 'delivering a controlled substance to a minor.' This is an explicit recognition that the unborn is a person with rights of her own. But that same woman who is prosecuted and jailed for endangering her child is perfectly free to abort her child. In America today, it is illegal to harm your preborn child, but it is perfectly legal to kill him.”
–Randy Alcorn, Pro Life Answers to Pro Choice Arguments
“Even if abortion were made easy or painless for everyone, it wouldn’t change the bottom-line problem that abortion kills children.”
–Randy Alcorn, Pro Life Answers to Pro Choice Arguments
“Compassion for the mother is extremely important, but is never served through destroying the innocent.”
–Randy Alcorn, Pro Life Answers to Pro Choice Arguments
“The quest for perfection, the notion that man is the architect of his own heredity and the blurring of what it means to be human are mainstays of the new world view.”
–Dave Andrusko, from To Rescue The Future
“No matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; but oh, thrice guilty is he who drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime!”
–Susan B. Anthony
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“Disability rights activists point out that non-disabled people all too often have a distorted and negative view of the quality of life with a disability, and that newly disabled people go through an adjustment period before realizing this. Tragically, those whose fear of disability led to their deaths in Oregon will never have that opportunity.”
–Burke Balch, Director of the Department of Medical Ethics, National Right to Life Committee
“Just because something happens to be legal does not make it moral, ethical or right. Abortion is perhaps one of the most dramatic examples of a situation where something is legal, but is very much a sin against God.”
–A.L. Barry, The Lutheran Church, President of the Missouri Synod
“The hairsplitting difference between formed and unformed makes no difference to us. Whoever deliberately commits abortion is subject to the penalty for homicide.”
–Saint Basil
“…Though born with a fiery active temperament, even susceptible to the diversions of society, I was soon compelled to withdraw myself, to live life alone. If at times I tried to forget all this, oh how harshly was I flung back by the doubly sad experience of my bad hearing. Yet it was impossible for me to say to other people, “Speak louder, shout, for I am deaf.” Ah, how could I possibly admit an infirmity in the one sense which ought to be more perfect in me than in others, a sense which I once possessed in the highest perfection such as few in my profession enjoy or ever have experienced … what a humiliation for me when someone standing next to me heard a flute in the distance and I heard nothing, or someone heard a shepherd singing and again I heard nothing. Such incidents drove me almost to despair; a little more of that and I would have ended my life–it was only my art that held me back…”
–Ludwig Van Beethoven, reflecting on his sorrow about his disability; Heilingenstadt (October, 1802)
“I have been pregnant three times in the past five years, and am presently in my seventh month. I am now 'showing,' so that all can see the presence of life within me. And I feel it very strongly now: a kick here, a squirm there. But even in the first month, with fatigue, sometimes nausea, and other hallmarks of early pregnancy, a mother knows something is different. That difference is the presence of life, manifesting itself–if just to Mom alone.”
–Meredith Berkman, lifetime abortion supporter, in The New York Post
“It is the right of every pregnant woman to give birth . . . and the right of every child to be born.”
–Birthright International
“When a man steals to satisfy hunger, we may safely conclude that there is something wrong in society. So when a woman destroys the life of her unborn child, it is an evidence that either by education or circumstances she has been greatly wronged.”
–Mattie Brinkerhoff
“All that is required for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.”
–Edmund Burke
“Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.”
–Edmund Burke
“I do not like abortions. I will do everything in my power to restrict abortion.”
–Gov. George W. Bush, Dallas Morning News (October 22, 1994)
“Children and unborn children should be protected by law and welcomed into life.”
–Gov. George W. Bush
“I believe that life is valuable, even when it is unwanted, even when it is physically imperfect. I believe our society has a responsibility to defend the vulnerable and the weak. And I believe our nation should set a goal that unborn children should be welcomed in life and protected in law.”
–Gov. George W. Bush, at the signing ceremony for Texas' Parental Notification Law (June 7, 1999)
“When a child is in crisis, parents should have a role and a voice. They should be the first to help, not the last to know.”
–Gov. George W. Bush, at the signing ceremony for Texas' Parental Notification Law (June 7, 1999)
“I do not believe the promises of the Declaration of Independence are just for the strong, the independent, the healthy. They are for everyone–including unborn children. We are a society with enough compassion and wealth and love to care for both mothers and their children, to seek the promise and potential in every life.”
–Gov. George W. Bush, in a videotaped address to the National Right to Life Convention (June 1999)
“I think the platform ought to be pro-life. It is the basis of the Republican Party. People have got to understand that abortion is not a contraceptive.”
–Gov. George W. Bush, “Larry King Live”, CNN (December 16, 1999)
“We must appreciate the dignity of life in all its seasons, even the path of the elderly in the twilight of their years, to work toward the day when every child, born and unborn, is welcomed to life and protected by law.”
–Gov. George W. Bush
“First of all, in principle, I’m against physician-assisted suicide, and secondly, I believe it is the prerogative of the federal government to control drug rules. And the idea of using a controlled substance to end somebody’s life is something I don’t agree with. I can see the idea of using controlled substances to ease somebody’s pain. That makes sense.”
–Gov. George W. Bush, quoted in The Oregonian, (May 17, 2000)
“There’s a second life involved. No matter what your position is on abortion or the death penalty, you shouldn’t put a pregnant woman to death.”
–Gov. George Bush, on the question on whether he supports a federal law that prohibits pregnant women from being executed (July 17, 2000)
“I rest their case. I’m Pro-Life.”
–Gov. George W. Bush, in response to National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League's label of Governor Bush as the most “anti-choice” governor in America
“A truly welcoming society must be a culture of Life … We must appreciate the dignity of Life in all its seasons … and look toward the day when every child, born and unborn, is welcome in Life and protected in law.”
–Gov. George W. Bush
“I have something else to ask you–to ask every American. I ask for you to pray for this great nation. I ask your prayers for leaders from both parties. I thank you for your prayers for me and my family, and I ask you to pray for Vice President Gore and his family.”
–Pres. George W. Bush
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“How is the person who considers abortion to be murder any different from the Pole who knew what was going to happen at Auschwitz? If the Pole was morally obligated to attempt to save lives, isn’t the person who opposes abortion under the same obligation?”
–B.D. Colen, “The Anti-Abortion High Ground”
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“Any discrimination based on the various stages of life is no more justified than any other discrimination. The right to life remains complete in an old person, even one greatly weakened; it is not lost by one who is incurably sick. The right to life is no less to be respected in the small infant just born than in the mature person. In reality, respect for human life is called for from the time that the process of generations begins. From the time that the ovum is fertilized, a life is begun which is neither that of the father nor of the mother; it is rather the life of a new human being with his own growth. It would never be made human if it were not human already.”
—Declaration on Procured Abortion
“The difference between the way of life and the way of death is great. Therefore, do not murder a child by abortion or kill a newborn infant.”
–The Didache, apostolic moral teachings compiled at the end of the first century A.D.
“If a woman plans to terminate her pregnancy, she commonly refers to the life within her as the 'fetus'. But if she intends to deliver and love and care for the little child, she affectionately calls him 'my baby'.”
–Dr. James C. Dobson
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“When men have a fight and hurt a pregnant woman, so that she suffers a miscarriage, but no further injury, the guilty one shall be fined as much as the woman’s husband demands of him, and he shall pay in the presence of the judges.”
–Exodus 21:22
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“If we take any living member of the species homo sapiens and put them outside the realm of legal protection, we undercut the case against discrimination for everyone else. The basis for equal treatment under the law is that being a member of the species is sufficient to be a member of the human community, without consideration for race, gender, disability, age, stage of development, state of dependency, place of residence or amount of property ownership. Abortion dynamites the foundation of feminism, and poisons the well against civil rights for African Americans, the elderly, the disabled, and others.”
–Feminists for Life
“No matter how it is worded or performed, abortion hurts women. This won’t stop until women stand up in unison and say, ‘This is unacceptable. We deserve better.’ Lack of emotional and financial resources are the real undue burden–and abortion will never lift that.”
–Serrin Foster, President, Feminists for Life of America
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“For those who do choose to work publicly, there are rewards. My child lives in the face of every baby whose mother and father were encouraged to choose life because I chose to share my tragedy. There is no doubt that working to save lives can be a healing experience.”
–Olivia Gans, American Victims of Abortion
“The primary moral judgment on candidates and their positions is to be made in the light of their concern for protecting human life from conception to natural death.”
–Cardinal Francis George
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“The right to life is not a woman's issue. The Lord is the giver of life and only He can make choices about life. It is always a reward to have life … only the Lord gives and takes life.” She characterized partial-birth abortion as “infanticide … total infanticide,” adding, “and it's acceptable in Washington, D.C.”
–Margaret Heckler, former Secretary of Health, Welfare, and Education, in an address delivered at a communion breakfast sponsored by Women Affirming Life, a national network of Catholic women committed to upholding the sanctity of life from conception to death
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
–Oliver Wendell Holmes
“A Christian can never conform to a law which is in itself immoral, and such is the case of a law which would admit in principle the liceity of abortion. Nor can a Christian take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law or vote for it … On the contrary, it is the task of law to pursue reform of society and conditions of life in all its milieux, starting with the most deprived, so that always and everywhere it may be possible to give every child coming into this world a welcome worthy of a person.”
–Holy See (1974)
“Every time stem cells are obtained from a human embryo, the inner cell mass is destroyed, along with an innocent human person,” he said. “There is no ethical way to obtain stem cells from a human embryo–and there are no exceptions to this statement.”
–Fr. Joseph Howard, Jr., M.Div., Director, American Bioethics Advisory Commission
“If a physician presumes to take into consideration in his work whether life has value or not, the consequences are boundless and the physician becomes the most dangerous man in the state.”–Dr. Christoph Hufeland, Germany, 1762-1836
“There is no more important issue than restoring the protection of the law to pre-natal infants.”
–Sen. Gordon Humphrey (R-New Hampshire)
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“I was once pro-choice and the thing that changed my mind was, I read my husband’s biology books, medical books, and what I learned . . . At the moment of conception, a life starts. And this life has its own unique set of DNA, which contains a blueprint for the whole genetic make-up. The sex is determined. We know there is a life because it is growing and changing.”
–Kathy Ireland, appearing on the television show “Politically Incorrect”
“According to the law of Biogenesis, all life comes from pre-existing life, and each species reproduces after its own kind. Therefore, human beings can only reproduce other human beings. So it doesn’t start out as one species and suddenly become a human being somewhere along the way.”
“And some people say, well it’s a woman’s body; it should be her choice. There’s a 50% chance the baby she’s carrying is a male child, and he would have a penis. Women don’t have penises so it’s residing in her body. It is not a part of her body.”
“If the unborn is not a human being, have as many abortions as you want, whenever you want; no justification is necessary.”
“If, on the other hand, the Unborn is a human being, no justification is adequate unless another human life is at risk, that being the mother’s. But in that case, you’re not acting to kill; you’re acting to save a life.”
“When an abortion takes place, there are at least two victims. We cannot be condemning women; women have been so hurt by this, and they are not given all the facts.”
“I didn’t want to be pro-life, but this is not a woman’s rights issue but a human rights issue.”
“Even if you don’t share our faith, an atheist can know that it’s wrong to kill an innocent human life. That’s why I don’t mind ‘imposing’ this on other people.”
–Kathy Ireland, appearing on Mike Huckabee's show, “Huckabee”
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“The care of human life and not its destruction … is the first and only legitimate object of good government.”
–Thomas Jefferson
“The best thing I can show you to defend life is my life. It has been a great gift. I have met other survivors of abortion. They are all thankful for Life … when I speak, I speak not only for myself, but for the other survivors … and also those who cannot yet speak … Today a baby is a baby when convenient. It is tissue or otherwise when the time is not right. A baby is a baby when miscarriage takes place at two, three, four months. Why is that? I see no difference.”
–Gianna Jessen, saline abortion survivor who has overcome amazing odds
“America, your very future as a nation depends on your willingness to protect the Right to Life of the most of the most defenseless in your society.”
–Pope John Paul II
“In this context the temptation grows to have recourse to euthanasia, that is, to take control of death and bring it before its time, 'gently' ending one’s own life or the life of others. In reality, what might seem logical and humane, when looked at more closely is seen to be senseless and inhumane. Here we are faced with one of the more alarming symptoms of the 'culture of death'.”
–Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life)
“God, our Father, you always bear the cry of the poor. How many times have Christians themselves not recognized you in the hungry, the thirsty and the naked, in the persecuted, the imprisoned, and in those incapable of defending themselves, especially in the first stages of life. For all those who have committed acts of injustice by trusting in wealth and power and showing contempt for the 'little ones' who are so dear to you, we ask your forgiveness: have mercy on us and accept our repentance. We ask this through Christ our Lord.”
–Pope John Paul II, March 12, 2000
“The public has a right to know whether abortion methods are being altered to obtain organs, whether live births sometimes occur during such procedures, and whether baby body parts are being sold for profit.”
–Douglas Johnson, Legislative Director of National Right to Life Committee
“The fact that the abortion pill will be imported from the People's Republic of China is both a public health issue and a human rights issue. It is a pubic health issue because China is a major source of impure drugs-and the FDA cannot possibly monitor a Chinese factory effectively. It is a human rights issue because Hua Lian Pharmaceutical is a major component of the Chinese government's population control program, which relies heavily on compulsory abortion.”
–Douglas Johnson, Legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee
“Yet they [the American Cancer Society]refuse to list the Abortion/Breast Cancer risk, even though 13 of 14 studies in the USA revealed the risk and 25 of 31 studies worldwide. Laboratory tests with rats also revealed the risk. And yet, with this evidence, why is the ACS withholding this vital information?”
–Dr. Frank Joseph, MD
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“Many feminists insist that abortion is necessary for women to participate freely and equally in society. Anyone who disagrees, they argue, has merely adopted patriarchal standards and accepted women's 'place' in society. Yet this argument demonstrates how deeply the roots of sexism run in our culture. Its premise is a sexist one–that women are inferior to men and that in order to be equal, we have to change our biology to become like men–wombless and unpregnant at will. What other oppressed group in history has had to undergo surgery in order to be equal?”
–Marilyn Dickstein Kopp, a Pro-Life feminist
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“Cardinal O’Connor preached most powerfully by his example the necessity of seeing in every human being, from the first moment of conception to the last moment of natural death and every moment in between … the image of a God to be loved and served. What a great legacy he has left us in his constant reminder that the Church must be always unambiguously Pro-Life.”
–Cardinal Bernard Law, in his homily delivered at the funeral of New York’s Cardinal John O'Connor
“To sin by silence when they should protest, makes cowards of men.”
–Pres. Abraham Lincoln
“No law can give me the right to do what is wrong.”
–Pres. Abraham Lincoln
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“I am increasingly suspicious that shadow language is used because many political leaders either don't support abortion and are afraid to say so or because they want to pretend that a moral evil is somehow a moral good. And the only way to make evil into good is to disguise it.”
–Cardinal Roger Mahoney, on the phrase “a woman's right to choose…”
“I don't believe being wives and mothers has oppressed women. They have been selected by nature for a task which is far more important than anything men do. It's time society stopped devaluing the role of wife, mother, and homemaker.” Dr. Makow believes that “a woman who puts husband and children before herself brings love into the world. More than any other, this is the way love is born.”
–Henry Makow, Ph.D., who was let go from his position as a lecturer in the English department of the University of Winnipeg for allegedly being a “non-feminist,” according to the University President Constance Rooke.
“If His Eminence has shown and taught me anything, it is that true respect for human life proceeds from the moment of conception.”
–Dr. Lisa Marrero, in “Cardinal John O’Connor a Rock of the Church” in Crisis (May 2000)
“Take My Hand, Not My Life”
–Massachusetts Citizens for Life
“We have treated the loss of our fetuses as a theoretical loss, a sad-but-necessary loss, as of civilians in wartime. We have not yet realized that the offspring lost are not the enemy's, nor our neighbor's, but our own. And it is not a loss of inert, amorphous tissue, but of a growing being unique in history.”
–Frederica Mathewes-Green, The Bitter Price of Choice
“I assure you, as often as you neglected to do it to one of these least ones, you neglected to do it to me.”
–Matthew 25:45
“The most important person on earth is a mother. She cannot claim the honor of having built Notre Dame Cathedral. She need not. She has built something more magnificent than any cathedral – a dwelling for an immortal soul, the tiny perfection of her baby’s body…the angels have not been blessed with such a grace. They cannot share in God’s creative miracle to bring new saints to Heaven. Only a human mother can. Mothers are closer to God the creator than any other human creature. God joins forces with mothers in performing this act of creation… What on God’s earth is more glorious than this: to be a mother.”
–Cardinal Joseph Mindszenty
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“Fewer women would have abortions if wombs had windows.”
–Dr. Bernard Nathanson, former abortionist turned Pro-Life, in his 1979 book Aborting America
“How much a society values its children can be measured by how well their children are treated.”
–The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect
“During Dick Cheney’s service in the House of Representatives (1979-1988), there were 27 roll calls rated as key Pro-Life votes by NRLC. On these, Mr. Cheney voted Pro-Life on 100% of the roll calls for which he was present.”
–National Right to Life, Press Release (July 24, 2000)
“A study published October 3 in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that support for assisting suicide and euthanasia among oncologists declined by more than half between 1994 and 1998.”
–National Right to Life, Press Release (October 4, 2000)
“The right to life, inherent in each of the inhabitants of the nation and the world, is the principal axis of human rights and, therefore, merits the determined attention of the government.”
–Nicaraguan government decree declaring March 25, 2000, as the “National Day of the Unborn”
“There is an urgent need for regulation of what constitutes legitimate use of this type of genetic diagnosis. Low IQ is not life-threatening. This is a significant step towards eugenics.”
–Richard Nicholson, editor of Bulletin of Medical Ethics, on a new test which screens unborn children for low intelligence
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“Some people argue that changing laws will not eliminate abortions. It is certainly true that a change of heart is more important than a change of law. What is forgotten, however, is that the law is the great teacher. Children grow up believing that if a practice is legal, it must be moral.”
–Cardinal John O’Connor
“Pro-Lifers even have one big advantage over their predecessors: now, wonderful photographs of unborn children at every stage of gestation are available.”
–Marvin Olasky, Abortion Rites: A Social History of Abortion in America
“I ask you, Lord, if you would just instill in their hearts the desire to protect the unborn, those babies being carried by women all over the state of Florida. And Lord, I want to ask you please help them, Lord, to just continue to follow in the tradition of the sanctity of marriage, in your design from the word of God, one man, one woman for life.”
–Rev. Daryl Orman, a Baptist minister, praying before the opening session of the Florida State House.
“I am here to urge you: Do not, in the name of progress for disabled people, certify or justify the destructive harvesting of human embryos for stem cell research, a practice both immoral and unnecessary. While disabled people are interested in cures, as well as better tools for living, greater inclusion in society and other possibilities which will improve our quality of life, we are not so desperate for cures that moral considerations disappear.”
–Mary Jane Owens, Executive Director, National Catholic Office for Persons with Disabilities
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“Whether by pill or invasive surgery, abortion is never good for women.”
–Janet Parshall, Chief Spokeswoman, Family Research Council
“For a Christian to speak or act publicly in a pro-choice manner is a scandal to the Gospel and Name of Jesus Christ.”
–Fr. Frank Pavone, Director, Priests for Life
“When we elect our lawmakers in America, we influence the moral character of this nation for better or for worse. When our laws permit violence against little babies, incidents like the Columbine High School shootings are the logical outcome.”
–Fr. Frank Pavone, Director, Priests for Life
“Christians have a duty to be politically active, to register and vote, to lobby and educate candidates and elected officials, and to speak up about the issues that affect the common good. The Church does not set up the voting booths, but when we go into the voting booths, we don't cease to be members of the Church! If we don't shape public policy according to moral truths, why do we believe that moral truth at all?”
–Fr. Frank Pavone, Director, Priests for Life
“More than four thousand innocent lives are taken each day in this land of the free and home of the brave, whose lady holds high the torch of welcome to human life.”
–John Powell, Abortion: the Silent Holocaust
“Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless;maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Rescue the weak and needy;Deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”
–Psalm 82:3-4
You formed my most inner being; you knit me in my mother's womb. I praise you, so wonderfully you made me; wonderful are your works!
–Psalm 139:13-14
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The old law permitted abortion to save one life when two would otherwise die. The new law permits abortion to take one life when two would otherwise live.”
–Herbert Ratner, M.D.
“You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on Earth, or we will sentence them to take the final step into a thousand years of a new Dark Age. There is nothing less at stake than America’s future and if you care, you can’t run and you can’t hide. We must pick up the fallen chalice and carry forward for a positive, principled, conservative Millennium. You and I have the ability, the dignity, and the right to make our own decisions and to determine our own destiny; with God’s help we will do what is right for us, for our children, and for our beloved America.”
–Pres. Ronald Reagan
“Isn't it interesting that all of those people who support the choice of abortion have already been born?”
–Pres. Ronald Reagan
“The real question today is not when human life begins, but what is the value of human life?”
–Pres. Ronald Reagan
“There is no cause more important for preserving freedom than affirming the transcendent right to life of all human beings, the right without which no other rights have any meaning.”
–Pres. Ronald Reagan, Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation
“[The eugenicist’s new ethic] is an ethic that inevitably leads to a totalitarian mentality that seeks to create a utopian Brave New World by controlling who is allowed to be born into the world and how quickly the sick and ‘unfit’ are targeted to leave the world.”
–Dr. David Reardon, author and director of the Elliott Institute
“Abortion is the only surgery for which the surgeon is not obligated to inform the patient of the possible risks of the procedure, or even the exact nature of the procedure. Indeed, abortion providers are the only medical personnel who have a 'constitutional right' to withhold information, even when directly questioned by the patient.”
–David Reardon, Aborted Women: Silent No More
“The state has an interest in protecting the poor, the elderly, and disabled persons. The lives of disabled and elderly must be no less valuable than the lives of young and healthy … The difficulty in defining terminal illness and the risk that a dying patient’s request for assistance in ending his or her life might not be truly voluntary justifies the prohibitions on assisted suicide we uphold here.”
–Chief Justice William Rehnquist
“I think the American people are going to wake up. The Supreme Court has done us a favor. They have finally taken the mask off of what the plan is. They have taken the mask off of how far they will go in the destruction of unborn life, of how far they will go ultimately in the destruction of the elderly and infirm.”
–Dr. Pat Robertson
“There is no more precious gift you can give than life. Our forefathers … fought and bled to bled to bring about in this land a nation dedicated to the premise that all men are created equal.”
–Dr. Pat Robertson
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