WIST Quotations

Carlin, George -- Show (1996-03-29), Back in Town, “Abortion,” Beacon Theatre, New York City (HBO)

Dave — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 17:45:36 +0000

Boy, these conservatives are really something, aren’t they? They’re all in favor of the Unborn. They will do anything for the Unborn. But once you’re born, you’re on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don’t want to know about you. They don’t want to hear from you. No nothing. No neo-natal care. No daycare. No Head Start. No school lunch. No food stamps. No welfare. No nothing. If you’re pre-born you’re fine. If you’re pre-school, you’re fucked.

George Carlin (1937-2008) American comedian
Show (1996-03-29), Back in Town, “Abortion,” Beacon Theatre, New York City (HBO)
(Source)

(Source (Video), dialogue confirmed)

Ehrenreich, Barbara -- “Hers” column, New York Times (1985-02-07)

Dave — Wed, 13 Dec 2023 23:11:50 +0000

We are talking about a nine-month bout of symptoms of varying severity, often including nausea, skin discolorations, extreme bloating and swelling, insomnia, narcolepsy, hair loss, varicose veins, hemorrhoids, indigestion, and irreversible weight gain, and culminating in a physiological crisis which is occasionally fatal and almost always excruciatingly painful. If men were equally at risk from this condition — if they knew their bellies might swell as if they were suffering from end-stage cirrhosis, that they would have to go nearly a year without a stiff drink, a cigarette, or even an aspirin, that they would be subject to fainting spells and unable to fight their way onto commuter trains — then I am sure that pregnancy would be classified as a sexually transmitted disease and abortions would be no more controversial than emergency appendectomies.

Barbara Ehrenreich (1941-2022) American feminist, journalist, political activist
“Hers” column, New York Times (1985-02-07)
(Source)

Reprinted as "Their Dilemma and Mine," The Worst Years of Our Lives (1990)

Kennedy, Anthony -- Planned Parenthood v. Casey (91-744), 505 U.S. 833 (29 Jun 1992) [Majority Opinion]

Dave — Wed, 11 Nov 2020 19:34:26 +0000

Our law affords constitutional protection to personal decisions relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, child rearing, and education. Our cases recognize “the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child.” Our precedents “have respected the private realm of family life which the state cannot enter.” These matters, involving the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State.

Anthony Kennedy (b. 1936) US Supreme Court Justice
Planned Parenthood v. Casey (91-744), 505 U.S. 833 (29 Jun 1992) [Majority Opinion]
(Source)

Citations removed.

Kennedy, Florynce -- Speech, Washington, DC (15 May 1971)

Dave — Mon, 24 Apr 2017 22:36:52 +0000

If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.

Florynce "Flo" Kennedy (1916-2000) American lawyer, feminist, civil rights activist
Speech, Washington, DC (15 May 1971)

Quoted in Off Our Backs (24 Jun 1971). Gloria Steinem, who also used the phrase, later claimed it was said to her and Kennedy by an "old Irish woman taxi driver" in Boston, but she attributed it at other times to Kennedy herself. More info here.

La Follette, Suzanne -- Concerning Women (1926)

Dave — Mon, 20 Mar 2017 22:36:27 +0000

Nothing could be more grotesquely unjust than a code of morals, reinforced by laws, which relieves men from responsibility for irregular sexual acts, and for the same acts drives women to abortion, infanticide, prostitution, and self-destruction.

Suzanne La Follette (1893-1983) American journalist, author, feminist
Concerning Women (1926)
(Source)

Goldwater, Barry -- Interview, Los Angeles Times (1994)

Dave — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 16:06:20 +0000

Today’s so-called “conservatives” don’t even know what the word means. They think I’ve turned liberal because I believe a woman has a right to an abortion. That’s a decision that’s up to the pregnant woman, not up to the pope or some do-gooders or the Religious Right. It’s not a conservative issue at all.

Barry Goldwater (1909-1998) American politician
Interview, Los Angeles Times (1994)

HIcks, Bill -- Filling Up the Hump (1993)

Dave — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 12:08:00 +0000

You ever look at their faces? “We’re pro-life.” Don’t they look it? Don’t they just exude joie de vivre?

Bill Hicks (1961-1994) American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, musician [William Melvin "Bill" Hicks]
Filling Up the Hump (1993)

Chittister, Joan -- Interview with Bill Moyer, “NOW” (PBS) (12 Nov 2004)

Dave — Mon, 08 Jul 2013 13:56:36 +0000

But I do not believe that just because you’re opposed to abortion, that makes you “pro-life.” In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking. If all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed — and why would I think that you don’t? Because you don’t want any tax money to go there. That’s not “pro-life”. That’s pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is.

Joan D. Chittister (b. 1936) American Benedictine nun, author and lecturer
Interview with Bill Moyer, “NOW” (PBS) (12 Nov 2004)
(Source)