My Body, My Choice

In honor of Trust Women Week and Blog for Choice Day, I've gathered these thoughts, reflections and facts.

Bumper Sticker—Feminism: the Radical Notion that Women Are People

“If a fertilized egg has constitutional rights, women cannot have equal rights with men.”
– Jill Lepore, “Birthright”

“Abortion, for many women, is … an act of mercy, and an act of self-defense.”
– Alice Walker, “Right to Life: What Can the White Man Say to the Black Woman?”

“If women do not have the ability to decide what goes on in their bodies, then they are second-class citizens.”
– Trust Women

“… this debate, which rages at a time when there is no consensus about what makes a person a person, began before an American electorate of white men was able to agree that a woman’s status as a citizen is any different from that of a child.”
– Jill Lepore

Abortion has been performed for thousands of years. It was legal in the United States from the time the earliest settlers arrived until 1821 when Connecticut was the first state to outlaw abortions after "quickening." Soon after the Supreme Court restored the right to an abortion in 1973, the Hyde Amendment was passed, making abortions essentially unavailable to poor women.
– National Abortion Federation, “History of Abortion”

“Behind every debate on contraception and abortion is the sexist belief that women are incapable of making the decision whether or not to become mothers for ourselves. Anti-abortionists don’t want us to use birth control, emergency contraception, have abortions, or even have sex! We need to remind them that this is the 21st century, not the 19th, and we will not be silenced by their cynical political decisions and thinly-disguised contempt for women.”
– SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective