Stupid Anti-Life Quotes
NOTES:

       Really stupid anti-life quotes are marked with an asterisk: [*].
       Not surprisingly, this is one of the biggest categories of anti-life quotes contained in this database. It is a lot of fun just to read through the astoundingly witless things anti-lifers have said to the press and to each other. That their thinking and statements are stupid is natural, since they avoid logic and have no idea of how to think clearly, as described in Session 5 of Human Life International's Basic Pro-Life Training Program on the Pro-Life Library Compact Disc, "Source and Nature of the Anti-Life Mentality."

Contents

Adler, Jerry (Newsweek Magazine)
Allen, Douglas (columnist)
Alter, Jonathan (Newsweek Magazine)
American Anthropological Association (AAA)
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AUS)
Angus, Vivienne
Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF)
Annan, Kofi (United Nations Secretary General)
Anonymous or Unnamed Sources
Arthur, Joyce (Pro-Choice Action Network (P-CAN), Canada)
Asant, Molefi
Asner, Ed (actor)
AT&T (Atlantic Telephone and Telegraph)
Atkinson, Ti-Grace (National Organization for Women (NOW))
Baird-Windle, Patricia (abortion clinic owner)
Ballard, Michael (abortionist)
Baulieu, Etienne-Emile (inventor of the RU-486 abortion pill)
Bennet, James (New York Times reporter)
Blair, Lisa
Blandon, Nelba (Director of Censorship of the Sandinista's Interior Ministry)
Blumenthal, Sidney (Washington Post)
Bond, Julian (chairman of the NAACP)
Boyles, Stephanie (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA))
Brady, Ray (CBS)
Branden, Victoria (Humanist writer)
Brokaw, Tom
Brown, James Robert (University of Toronto professor)
Buble, Phillip ("zoo couples" activist)
Budapest, Z (self-proclaimed 'witch')
Caldicott, Helen
Campbell, Alastair (President of the International Association of Bioethics (IAB))
Cane, Manny
Carhart, LeRoy (third-trimester abortionist)
Carlson, Margaret (Time Magazine)
Carville, James
'Catholics' for a Free Choice (CFFC) (pro-abortion organization)
Chalker, Rebecca (Neofeminist author)
Chancellor, John (NBC News)
Chapman, Stephen (syndicated columnist)
Chasteen, Edgar R. (population controller)
Chicago Tribune
Chittister, Joan (dissenter)
Christopher, Warren (former United States Secretary of State)
Chua-Eoan, Howard G. (Time Magazine)
Chung, Connie (CBS News)
Church of Euthanasia
Church, George J. (Time Magazine)
Clark, Ramsey (former Attorney General of the United States)
Clift, Eleanor (Newsweek Magazine)
Clinton, Hillary
Clymer, Adam (New York Times reporter)
Coale, Ansley (population controller)
Cochran, John (NBC)
Coen, Amy (Population Action International (PAI))
CORPUS (National Association for a Married Priesthood (dissenting group))
Couric, Katie
Cozza, Scott
Cronkite, Walter
Curran, Dolores (syndicated columnist)
Daly, Mary (dissenter)
Davila, Valida
Davis, Gray (former Governor of California)
Davis, Julianne Ross (National Endowment for the Arts (NEA))
Donaldson, Sam (ABC)
Downs, Hugh (ABC)
Duddy, Marianne (Dignity)
Duffy, Michael (Time Magazine)
Edmiston, Susan (Glamour Magazine)
Ehrenreich, Barbara (Time Magazine)
Ehrlich, Paul (founder of Zero Population Growth (ZPG))
Elders, Joycelyn (former United States Surgeon General)
Ellerbee, Linda (CNN)
Elsie Robertson High School (Lancaster, Texas)
Engberg, Eric (CBS)
Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide (E-LAW)
Erbe, Bonnie (NBC)
Farajoje-Jones, Elias (Howard University Divinity Professor)
Feral, Priscilla (Humane Society, "Friends of Animals")
Fieger, Geoffrey
Fineman, Howard (Newsweek Magazine)
Fleming, Anne Taylor
Fonda, Jane (actress)
Foreman, Tom (ABC News)
Forrester, Jay (economist)
Fox, Matthew ("New Age" guru)
Friedan, Betty
Friedman, Thomas (New York Times columnist)
Fumento, Michael
Fundamentalists Anonymous (FA)
Gaia Liberation Front (GLF)
Gartner, Michael (NBC)
Gaylor, Anne Nicol
Gebara, Ivona (Brazilian 'theologian')
Gelman, David (Newsweek Magazine)
Gianelli, Michael (The Ark Trust)
Gibbs, Nancy (Time Magazine)
Gilbert, Matthew (Boston Globe)
Goodman, Linda
Gordon, Kevin ('Catholics' for a Free Choice (CFFC))
Gore, Al (Vice President of the United States, 1992-2000)
Graham, Fred (CBS)
Greider, William (PBS)
Green Nation
Gudorf, Christine E. ('Catholics' for a Free Choice (CFFC))
Gumbel, Bryant (NBC)
Hall, Gus (chairman of the American Communist Party)
Hardin, Garrett (population controller and eugenicist)
Harvey, Brett
Hay, Harry (founder of the Mattachine Society)
Hayward, Carter (Episcopal "priestess")
Herbert, Bob (NBC)
Hern, Warren (third-trimester abortionist)
Hildebrandt, Richard
Hooks, Benjamin (NAACP)
Hughes, Robert (Time Magazine)
Hulet, Craig
Hulett, Jim (Methodist pastor)
Humane Society
Ifill, Gwen (NBC)
Inclusive Bible
Ingrassia, Michele (Newsweek Magazine)
International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF)
International Association of Bioethics (IAB)
International Women's Film and Video Festival
Italian Pro-Abortion Groups
Jaffer, Mobina (British Columbian senator)
Jarrett, Gregg (MSNBC)
Jennings, Peter (ABC)
Kahn, James
Kaplan, David A. (Newsweek Magazine)
Karl, Jo Ann ('channeler')
Kennedy, Patrick (United States Congressman, D.-RI)
Kennedy, Ted (United States Senator, D.-Umb)
King, Larry (CNN)
Kiperchuk, Helen
Kissling, Frances (President, 'Catholics' for a Free Choice (CFFC))
Klein, Joe (Newsweek Magazine)
Knight, Les U. (founder of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT))
Koppel, Ted
Korda, Chris (Church of Euthanasia)
Kuralt, Charles
Lacayo, Richard (Time Magazine)
Landsberg, Michele
LaPierre, Laurier L. (Liberal Canadian Senator)
Leonard, John (CBS)
Loisdotter, Marlene (history teacher)
Lucero, Bruce (abortionist)
Manes, Christopher (radical environmentalist)
Mann, Judy (Washington Post columnist)
Manson, Charles (mass murderer)
Martin, A. Damien (Institute for the Protection of Lesbian and Gay Youth)
Mathison, Tyler (ABC)
Mattel Corporation
Matulis, Sherry
McCall, Nathan (Washington Post)
McCarthy, Colman (Washington Post)
McClendon, Sarah
McClure, Robert (United Church of Canada)
McCombs, Phil (Washington Post)
McRee, Lisa
Merchant, Morris
Michelman, Kate (NARRAL)
Milhaven, John Giles ('Catholics' for a Free Choice (CFFC))
Miller, Mark Crispin
Miller, Matthew (U.S. News & World Report)
Morgentaler, Henry (Canadian abortionist)
Morrison, Keith (NBC)
Morrow, Lance (Time Magazine)
Moseley-Brown (former United States Senator [D.-Ill.])
Ms. Magazine
Muhammed, Elijah (Nation of Islam)
Mumford, Stephen D. (population controller)
NARAL Pro-Choice America
National Abortion Federation (NAF)
National Alliance for Optional Parenthood (NAOP)
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)
National Gay Rights Advocates AIDS Civil Rights Project
National Organization for Women (NOW)
Nelson, Lars-Erik (New York Daily News)
Neu, Diann L. (lesbian anti-Catholic activist)
Newbardt, Selig (abortionist)
Newkirk, Ingrid (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA))
Newsweek Magazine
Niebrzydowski, Chris (National Organization for Women (NOW))
North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA, a pedophile organization)
Norville, Deborah
O'Brien, Mary (Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide (E-LAW))
O'Rourke, Joseph P. (former President of 'Catholics' for a Free Choice (CFFC))
Olbermann, Keith (MSNBC)
Ontario Film Review Board (OFRB)
Page, Clarence (Chicago Tribune)
Papworth, John
Parker, Lonnae O'Neal (Washington Post reporter)
Parshall, Gerald (U.S. News & World Report)
People for the 'American' Way (PAW)
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)
Perry, Luke (actor)
Pettit, Tom (NBC)
Phelan, Lana Clarke
Philips, Mark
Pierce, William
Piercy, Marge
Planned Parenthood
Plimpton, Martha (actress)
Population Action International (PAI)
Population Crisis Committee (PCC)
Porteous, Skipp
Postmodernist Bible
Powell, Michael (Washington Post reporter)
Powers, John (Washington Post)
Presbyterian Church, USA
Quinn, Sally (Washington Post)
Raines, Howell (New York Times)
Rather, Dan (CBS)
Regan, T. (animal rights activist)
Reinish, Kate (Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA))
'Religious' Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC))
Remnick, David (Washington Post)
Revolutionary Communist Party of the USA (RCP-USA)
Reynolds, Barbara (USA Today)
Rich, Frank (New York Times)
Ritter, Gretchen (University of Texas)
Rivera, Geraldo (CNBC)
Roberts, Steve (U.S. News and World Report)
Rodeph Sholom (Manhattan day school)
Roell, Hans (Vice-President, Dutch Voluntary Euthanasia Society)
Rooney, Andy
Rosenberg, Howard (Los Angeles Times)
Rosoff, Jeanne I. (President, Alan Guttmacher Institute)
Rostand, Jean (French biologist)
Rowan, Carl (Washington Post columnist)
Ruether, Rosemary Radford ('Catholics' for a Free Choice (CFFC))
Rutland Herald (Vermont Newspaper)
Saferstein, Harvey I.
Sanger, Alexander C. (Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA))
Sasso, Connie ('artist')
Schatz, Benjamin (National Gay Rights Advocates AIDS Civil Rights Project)
Scheer, Robert (Los Angeles Times)
Schieffer, Bob (CBS)
Schmidt, Adolph W. (Population Crisis Committee (PCC))
Schneider, William (CNN)
"SCUM [Society for Cutting Up Men] Manifesto"
Segal, D.R.
Shales, Tom (Washington Post)
Shannon, Elaine (Time Magazine)
Shapiro, Walter (Time Magazine)
Shaw, Margery W.
Shelton, Alan
Short, Clare (United Kingdom Secretary of State for International Development)
Shriver, Maria (NBC News)
Simon, Bob (CBS)
Simon, Scott (NPR)
Silver, Barry (lawyer for the National Organization for Women (NOW))
Singer, Peter ('bioethicist')
Smeal, Eleanor (National Organization for Women (NOW))
Smith, Harry (CBS)
Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality (SSSS)
Society for the Second Self (SSS, a transvestite organization)
Specter, Arlen (United States Senator)
Spin Magazine
Spong, John Shelby (Anglican Bishop of Newark, New Jersey)
Sprinkle, Annie (obscene 'performance artist')
Stanford University
Steinem, Gloria
Sullivan, Andrew
Taylor, Ronald
Thomas, Helen
Thompson, Dick (Time Magazine)
Thorstad, David (child molester)
Threlkeld, Richard
Thurow, Lester C.
Time Magazine
Totenberg, Nina (NPR)
Tribe, Laurence (law professor)
Turner, Ted
Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA)
United Church of Canada
United Nations
United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women (FWCW, Beijing, 1995)
United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)
University of Maryland
Van Horne, Harriet (Los Angeles Times)
Ventura, Jesse (former Governor of Minnesota)
Vidal, Gore (writer)
Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT)
Waibel, Father Kenneth (pro-homosexual activist)
Wallace, Mike (CBS correspondent)
Warren, James (Chicago Tribune)
Watt, Kenneth E.F. (University of California professor)
Wattleton, Faye (Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA))
Weinberg, Steven (Nobel Prize winner) Weisberg, Jacob (Newsweek Magazine)
Welch, Raquel (actress)
White, Jack E. (Time Magazine)
White, Jerry (founder of the Cryonics Society)
Williams, Christine (Washington Post)
Williams, Juan (Washington Post)
Wilson, Edward O.
Wise, Steven (Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF))
Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual (WATER)
Woodward, Kenneth L. (Newsweek Magazine)
World Council of Churches (WCC)
World Peace Agenda
Wright, Robert (New Republic)
Yao, Richard (President of Fundamentalists Anonymous (FA))
Yard, Molly (former President, National Organization for Women (NOW))
Yardley, Jonathan (Washington Post)
York, Toby (New Caney, Texas High School principal)
Zahn, Paula (CBS)
Zero Population Growth (ZPG, now Population Connection)
Zirinsky, Susan (CBS)
Zuckerman, Mortimer (U.S. News & World Report)

Adler, Jerry (Newsweek Magazine)

[*]       "It's a morbid observation, but if everyone on earth just stopped breathing for an hour, the greenhouse effect would no longer be a problem."
—
 Newsweek Magazine Senior Writer Jerry Adler, in the December 31, 1990 issue.

Allen, Douglas (columnist)

[*]       "It's clear to everyone in this country that there is a problem with race among us citizens of the good old U.S. of A. And it seems that no respectable solution exists. Either you're for majority superiority or for minority superiority. You favor whites, or you favor blacks. ... This is, of course, as it ought to be. ...
       "To judge the individual as an individual is pernicious. ... The oppressed peoples of the earth will never know true freedom until they can use the lever of government to pry power away from their white overlords. ... Only be radical reconstruction of American society — only by restacking the societal deck — will we ever see freedom in our land. ... Let bigotry continue — only let it be redemptive bigotry. Let it smash that evil race which wielded it so effectively for so long."
—
Columnist Douglas Allen. Oakland Tribune, July 22, 1996. Also quoted in William Norman Grigg. "Fanning the Flames of Rage." The New American, December 9, 1996, pages 4 to 8.

Alter, Jonathan (Newsweek Magazine)

       "The explanation for this almost evasive coverage has to do with [Michael] Jackson's peculiar relationship with the public, and the interpretation of that relationship by the press. The feeling is: he may be a space cadet, but he's our space cadet, and we want to keep him. He's the Ronald Reagan of pop."
—
 Newsweek Magazine media writer Jonathan Alter, September 6, 1993.

       "Overlaying this structure was a national politics heavily conditioned by nearly half a century of cold war. Strength and toughness trumped everything else. At one military briefing during the 1980s, Reagan was shown models of American missiles. The American power phalluses were long and white; the Soviets', shorter and black. We were still safely ahead, but only by the margin of our machismo."
—
 Newsweek Magazine's Jonathan Alter, reviewing the 1996 political landscape, December 30, 1996/January 6, 1997 issue.

American Anthropological Association (AAA)

       "For millions of years the earth got along without human beings, and it will do so again. The only question is the nature of the human demise that has already begun."
—
Dr. Lynn Margulis of the University of Massachusetts, coauthor of the "Gaia Hypothesis," speaking at the November 1998 annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) in Philadelphia (organized by Colorado abortionist Warren Hern), in answer to the question "Is the human species a cancer on the planet?" "Anthropologist Symposium Calls Human Beings a Cancer Infecting Planet Earth." Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute (CAFHRI) Friday FAX, January 1, 1999.

[*]       "Aerial and satellite views of urban centers taken over a period of years bore a striking similarity to images of cancerous tissue (particularly melanoma) invading the healthy surrounding tissue. ... In many parts of the world the increase in human numbers is rapid and uncontrolled, that it invades and destroys habitats, and that by killing off many species it reduces the differentiation of nature. All of these features are characteristics of cancerous tumors."
—
Colorado abortionist Warren Hern, speaking at the November 1998 annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) in Philadelphia he organized, in answer to the question "Is the human species a cancer on the planet?" "Anthropologist Symposium Calls Human Beings a Cancer Infecting Planet Earth." Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute (CAFHRI) Friday FAX, January 1, 1999.

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

[*]

"IN UTAH,
THEY KNOW HOW TO PUNISH
A WOMAN WHO HAS AN ABORTION.
THEY SHOOT HER."

—
Gail Quinn. "The ACLU and Truth in Abortion Advertising." The Portland, Oregon Catholic Sentinel. May 31, 1991, page 5 [NOTE:  The ACLU placed this hysterical propaganda in a $30,000 full-page March 25, 1991 New York Times advertisement. This was in reaction to the Utah state legislature passing a law in January 1991 that merely made it easier for women who had been injured by abortions to file civil suits against their abortionists. The legislature specifically wrote into the law that women would be totally free of any penalties whatsoever for obtaining any abortions — legal or illegal].

[*]       [We protest against] "public officials who want to promote their personal beliefs from an elected perch and turn our country into a biblical theocracy not unlike that of a country called Iran."
—
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) response to Louisiana Governor Mike Foster issuing a proclamation asking citizens to pray for rain to relieve the Summer 2000 drought. Described in Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. 2000 Report on Anti-Catholicism, available on-line at the Catholic League's Web site here.

[*]       "This is a time when we need to promote unity among Americans of all faiths. Many schools are flying flags to instill a sense of unity in a time of trouble. By displaying a religious message, the Breen Elementary School is dividing its young students along religious lines. School officials are hurting and isolating their schoolchildren of minority faiths when they should be supporting them and the values of pluralism and tolerance. [Displaying such a message is not only unconstitutional] but implies only students who share the faith are truly patriotic. It must be replaced immediately."
—
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Northern California lawyer Margaret Crosby, on a Breen Elementary School [Rocklin] "God Bless America" sign put up after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Quoted in Ryan McCarthy. "School Rallies to Retain Sign: The ACLU Says the Message 'God Bless America' Divides Kids by Religion and is Unconstitutional." Sacramento Bee, October 6, 2001.

       "Hundreds of women this year will die because they cannot afford an abortion."
—
1987 pamphlet entitled "The ACLU's Campaign for Choice," referring to the Hyde Amendment, page 1.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AUS)

[*]       Evidence indicates that the two students who killed their peers, and ultimately themselves at Columbine High, felt alienated and ostracized. We know from experience that school-sponsored religious displays and worship invariably make some students feel like second-class citizens."
—
Methodist Pastor Barry W. Lynn, President of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, in a May 19, 1999 press release. Quoted in "Still More Dumbing Down." From the Mail, The Wanderer, July 1, 1999, page 9.

Angus, Vivienne

       "I'm a great believer that in everybody is every animal, and every animal is in everybody."
—
Vivienne Angus in her book Know Yourself Through Your Cat, in a review of the book in the September 9, 1991 International Herald Tribune. Also quoted in P.J. O'Rourke. American Spectator's Enemies List [New York City: The Atlantic Monthly Press], 1996, page 84.

Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF)

       "I don't see a difference between a chimpanzee and my 4-1/2-year-old son. ... Certain species are capable of complex emotions, can communicate using language, and have a sense of self, all characteristics that once defined humanity. Chimps have 98.7 percent of DNA in common with humans. Both my son Christopher and your average adult chimpanzee obviously meet any minimum rational standard for entitlement to basic legal rights. ... There's 60 million people out there who tell me their dog is like Einstein, but as far as work done to figure out what dogs think about, there's hardly any. The early work I did in the 1980s, when I'd go into a courtroom and make an argument on behalf of a dog, people would just start laughing. ... You have an anencephalic child born with no brain and we give that child a whole panoply of rights, and you have animals like [chimpanzee] Alex who have complex and bright minds and they're treated like chairs."
—
Steven Wise, president of the Animal Legal Defense Fund from 1984 to 1994, a longtime animal rights lawyer from Needham, Massachusetts, and author of the book Drawing the Line: Science and the Case for Animal Rights. Quoted in "Beastly Behavior?: A Law Professor Says It's Time to Extend Basic Rights to the Animal Kingdom." Washington Post, June 5, 2002, page C01 [NOTE:  Jane Goodall, the world's best-known primate researcher, calls Wise's first book Rattling the Cage "the animals' Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence and Universal Declaration of Rights all in one." In one public session, in answer to the question "Should an adult chicken have more rights than a human embryo?," Wise said "I haven't studied chickens, but if the chicken has more appreciation for life than the human embryo, then yes, the chicken should have more rights"].

Annan, Kofi (former United Nations Secretary General)

       "Imagine melting polar icecaps and rising sea levels, threatening beloved and highly developed coastal areas such as Cape Cod with erosion and storm surges. Imagine a warmer and wetter world in which infectious diseases such as malaria and yellow fever spread more easily. This is not some distant, worst-case scenario. It is tomorrow's forecast."
—
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, during the commencement ceremonies on May 20, 2001, at Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, during which he slammed President George W. Bush for abandoning the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. "Chicken Little in Charge of the UN." LifeSite Daily News at http://www.lifesite.net, May 30, 2001. From "Notes on the Human Tramedy" by Toronto writer Paul Tuns [NOTE:  The Boston Globe's weather forecast for May 21 was a high of 61 and partly cloudy].

Anonymous or Unnamed Sources

       ""Abortion is Murder" his sign said. I was looking at that sign and thinking about the real murders that happened recently at abortion clinics when I stepped off the curb and the concrete rose up to meet me.
       ""Are you all right?" someone asked me as I walked along cradling my arm. "Yeah," I said. "I was looking at that abortion protestor when I fell," I tried to explain. "I blame him; I hate them now more than ever."
—
"A Word From the Publisher." Blue Stocking, Spring 1995, page 2.
Q.
"Do you have any opinions on the Pope?"
A.
"I really don't follow institutionalized religion — I'm just not a believer in it. I have my own personal view of Catholicism — that it's incredibly hypocritical and the Pope is the prime example of that."
Q.
"Do you know anything about last week's encyclical Faith and Reason?"
A.
"Um, no, I don't."
Q.
"Do you know how many years this Pope has been serving?"
A.
"No, not too long, right?"
Q.
"How about his name, where he lives?"
A.
"John Paul, right? In the Vatican."
Q.
"Do you know any Pope jokes?"
A.
"Not really. I know one that he's in, but it's really a Monica Lewinsky joke."
Q.
"Do you know anything about last week's encyclical, Faith and Reason?"
A.
"No, will you tell me? I have a big problem with organized religion, much less having one key authority figure that interprets the Bible, which has so many different interpretations — it's just crazy. I heard for a while that he denied that he used the bathroom."
Q.
"What?"
A.
"Yes, I have a problem with someone who denies they use the bathroom. The Bible is an archaic document full of contradictions. There are some key principles, being nice to other people, but it's filled with contradictions. I mean, myself being a gay man, apparently I'm doomed to Hell. I'm a walking abomination. I don't like Christianity."
—
Excerpts from an interview with a homosexual student, noted in a September 1998 issue of the Columbia University daily newspaper, as quoted in Richard John Neuhaus. "The Public Square: A Continuing Survey of Religion and Public Life." "While We're At It." First Things, April 1999, pages 71 to 88.

[*]       "The term wacko right-winger is redundant. For example, they're the only people who don't like being called compassionate. Someone remarked that many now defend the tobacco industry because its products kill people early, saving us dollars in having to care for aged people."
—
Anonymous contributor to "Larry King's People" in USA Today, March 8, 1999.

[*]       "We are taught that the priests are God's representatives here on earth and since we are married to Christ, it is quite alright for us to bear the priests' children. I can remember one night when 28 babies were born in the Convent. ... All the priests who have left the Catholic faith and all the ex-Bishops who have left the Bishophood [sic] of the Catholic Church agree 90% of the priests are sex perverts."
—
"Sister Charlotte's Testimony" in The Overcomer, published by the Faith Cathedral Fellowship, Inc. of Walterboro, South Carolina [NOTE:  The article concluded "We found out after this article was printed that Sister Charlotte was killed by the Catholic Church"]. Described in Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. 2000 Report on Anti-Catholicism, available on-line at the Catholic League's Web site here.

Arthur, Joyce (Pro-Choice Action Network (P-CAN), Canada)

       "Because if the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion is overturned, as many predict, women can probably look forward to being prosecuted, jailed, and even executed for "murdering" their fetuses [NOTE:  Pure garbage! This did not happen before Roe v. Wade, and it will not happen again. Arthur is merely scaremongering here] ... The practice of abortion is unrelated to the status of the fetus — it hinges totally on the aspirations and needs of women [NOTE:  This is as stupid as saying that "The practice or rape is unrelated to the status of women"]. ... On average, abortion rates do not differ substantially between countries where it's legal and countries where it's illegal [NOTE:  More pro-abort silliness — Arthur would have us believe that laws have absolutely no impact on the frequency of a crime] ... But as soon as we bestow special rights on fetuses, we separate them from their mothers and create an adversarial relationship that hurts both [NOTE:  Is there a human being on Earth who could make sense of such a stupid statement?] ... it's logically impossible for two beings occupying the same body to exercise two competing sets of rights — one or the other has to go. ... The Catholic Church even allowed abortion until quickening, up until 1869 [NOTE:  Any reputable scholar will tell you that this is a simple pro-abortion lie about history, obviously intended to make the Church seem inconsistent. Arthur's source for this lie is the pro-abortion Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, so what do you expect?] ... Now, a flake of dandruff from my head is human, but it is not a human being, and in this sense, neither is a fertilized egg [NOTE:  Note the empty-headedness of this argument. A fingernail from a late-term fetus is not a person either. No pro-abortionist has ever proven that the unborn child is not a human being]. ... But many anti-choicers support exceptions to a ban on abortion in cases of rape, incest, a threat to the woman's life, or even health. This clearly indicates that they believe the right to life of a fetus is negotiable, certainly not absolute or paramount. By compromising their "right to life" definition in order to accommodate a woman's rights, they inadvertently acknowledge that women's rights are more important than the right to life of fetuses [NOTE:  Here Arthur makes a simple statement that is absolutely correct! This is a wonderful recap of the basic pro-life argument against abortion exceptions] ... In fact, the biological definition of "parasite" fits the fetal mode of growth precisely, especially since pregnancy causes a major upset to a woman's body, just like a parasite does to its host. ...
—
Joyce Arthur. "The Fetus Focus Fallacy." Pro-Choice Press [Pro-Choice Action Network], March 2005. Downloaded from http://www.prochoiceactionnetwork-canada.org/articles/fetus-focus-fallacy.shtml on December 31, 2007.

Asant, Molefi

       "Either you support multiculturalism in American education, or you support the maintenance of white supremacy."
—
Molefi Asant, Chairperson of African-American studies at Temple University, quoted in Jerry Adler. "Taking Offense." Newsweek Magazine, December 24, 1990, pages 48 to 55.

Asner, Ed (actor)

       After a Cincinnati jury acquitted the art gallery owners who showed Mapplethorpe's "display" of obscenity, actor Ed Asner remarked that "The decision by the Cincinnati jury on the Mapplethorpe exhibit was phenomenal! After all, I consider the Mapplethorpe picture — one man urinating into the mouth of another — as merely a depiction of Ronald Reagan's trickle-down theory."
—
Actor Ed Asner, quoted in Off the Record, October 14, 1990, and in Mark Masters and David Kupelian. "Sneak Attack on America's Culture." New Dimensions Magazine, June 1991, pages 16 to 21.

AT&T (Atlantic Telephone and Telegraph)

       "We are a pipeline. Seven of the top ten multisystems offer some kind of adult services. If we do not offer competitive packages it puts us at a disadvantage. ... The Hot Network is not X-rated. It's true, the Network does show real sexual acts, but it does not show sex between nonconsenting adults, rape, bestiality or children. Therefore it does not fall under the category of pornography."
—
AT&T spokeswoman Alison Ruckhaber, quoted in Tim Drake. "AT&T Faces 'Hard-Core' Foes." National Catholic Register, August 6-12, 2000, pages 1 and 7.

Atkinson, Ti-Grace (National Organization for Women (NOW))

       "Marriage means rape and lifelong slavery. [childbirth] is very painful. It's so immature to grow babies in people's bodies. If we had test-tube babies, there would be less chance of a deformed fetus. ... We reject marriage both in theory and in practice. ... Love has to be destroyed. It's an illusion that people care for each other. Friendship is reciprocal, love isn't. ... In the good society, we can't tell what will happen to sexual attraction. It may be that sex is a neurotic manifestation of oppression. It's like a mass psychosis. ... The more I understand what's going on with men, the less I miss male companionship and sex. Men brag about domination, conquest, trickery, exploitation. It gets so I can't even respond. Male chauvinism comes out in waves — every gesture, every word."
—
Ti-Grace Atkinson, former President of the New York Chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW), quoted in Sara Davidson. "An 'Oppressed Majority' Demands Its Rights." Life Magazine, December 12, 1969, page 69.

Baird-Windle, Patricia (abortion clinic owner)

[*]       "Abortion is a major blessing, and a sacrament in the hands of women. ... At the very crucible of the sacrament of abortion work is that some women have an abortion out of love for the baby, [some] out of love for the children they already have and are having a hard time feeding. They love what they are getting from their education and they know they can't stop it."
—
Patricia Baird-Windle, former owner of 3 abortuaries, quoted in an August 29, 1999 interview with Florida Today, and in "The "Sacrament" of Abortion: An Interview With a Retired Abortionist." LifeSite Daily News at http://www.lifesite.net, August 31, 1999 [NOTE:  Interestingly, during the interview in which Baird-Windle announced her retirement, but proudly acknowledged her responsibility in 65,000 abortions, she denounced the abortifacient, RU-486. "RU-486 is painful. Women have a great deal of pain and nausea and many visits to the clinic," she said].

Ballard, Michael (abortionist)

[*]       Interviewer: "Doctor, what does the aborted baby feel while it's dying?"
       Abortionist Michael Ballard: "Oh, I think that depends on your philosophy."
—
Interview of abortionist Michael Ballard by Mike Levy. Triumph Magazine, March 1972, pages 20 to 23 and 44. Quoted in Donald DeMarco. Abortion in Perspective. Hayes Publishing Company, 1974.

Baulieu, Etienne-Emile (inventor of the RU-486 abortion pill)

[*]       "I don't like abortion and I don't like talking about it. I am a physician and would rather talk about saving life. I am not really for abortion, I am for women."
—
Etienne-Emile Baulieu, inventor of the RU-486 abortion pill, quoted in National Catholic Register. "France Orders Subsidies for RU-486 Abortion Pill." April 1, 1990, page 2.

Bennet, James (New York Times reporter)

[*]       "If there was any doubt that by virtue of his position, Clinton occupied as lofty a plane as the Pope on Tuesday — or that the Pope, by virtue of being human, had some of the same needs as Clinton — it was erased by the sign marking a restroom near their meeting room: 'President or Holy Father Only,' it read."
—
Last sentence of a January 27, 1999 New York Times story by reporter James Bennet on Clinton's St. Louis visit with the Pope.

Blair, Lisa

       "I did everything so that this child could have freedom and choice and have what America stands for. Liberty comes from ... just living your life."
—
Lisa Blair, mother of 7-year old Jessica Dubroff, who died on April 11, 1996 while trying to become the youngest girl ever to fly an airplane across the country. Quoted in Jon Sarche. "'Personal Effects' Overloaded Plane." The Cincinnati Enquirer, April 13, 1996, page A4.

Blandon, Nelba (Director of Censorship of the Sandinista's Interior Ministry)

[*]       "They [La Prensa] accused of us suppressing freedom of expression. This was a lie and we could not let them publish it."
—
Nelba Blandon, Director of Censorship of the Sandinista's Interior Ministry, quoted in the Liberation Bulletin and on page 11 of the November 6, 1987 National Review.

Blumenthal, Sidney (Washington Post)

[*]       "While George Bush — all whiteness — talks about 'family values,' the Clintons demonstrate them by confessing to adultery."
—
Former Washington Post reporter Sidney Blumenthal in The New Republic, February 17, 1992.

       "Then you've got Bill Bennett out there, who is kind of a Torquemada. ... Bill Bennett is basically a schismatic heretic practicing his own contrived lunatic version of the Latin Mass in the basement. That's what Buchanan is doing, only with Confederate flags flying. You have Phil Gramm from Texas, an incredibly mean-spirited right-wing character backed by big-oil money. He is the kind of perverse version of Lyndon Johnson whittled down to his vices and exaggerated. Then you have Bob Dole: When he's most sardonic and cruel is when he's most sincere. I think that's the Republican Party right now."
—
Former Washington Post reporter Sidney Blumenthal in The Boston Phoenix, April 16, 1993.

Bond, Julian (Chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP))

       "Their idea of equal rights is the American flag and the Confederate swastika flying side by side. They've written a new constitution for Iraq and ignore the Constitution here at home. They draw their most rabid supporters from the Taliban wing of American politics. Now they want to write bigotry back into the Constitution."
—
Julian Bond, Chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), at the 2004 Take Back America conference, which was also attended by George Soros and Hillary Clinton, quoted in "Hate Speech." End of Day [American Values], June 3, 2004, and in "NAACP Loses Presidential Addresses by Hateful Anti-Bush Rhetoric." LifeSite Daily News, July 16, 2004. [NOTE:  Gosh — we never knew that the Confederate flag had a swastika on it! The very inclusive, tolerant and nonjudgmental Bond also called Republicans "neo-fascists," "the white-people's party" and "a crazed swarm of right-wing locusts"].

Boyles, Stephanie (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA))

[*]       "Ants are sentient beings, like we are, and have a right to life like we do, and they shouldn't be shown the level of disrespect the producers of ant farms show them."
—
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals spokesperson Stephanie Boyles, responding to a question by Los Angeles Times reporter David Kelly. Downloaded from "Ants Are People Too." AnimalRights.Net ["Debunking the animals rights movement"] on August 8, 2002.

Brady, Ray (CBS)

       "It used to be that the United States was number one, dominant. ... So right now, we are fast losing our position as number one, Connie. ... Yes, we're no longer dominant, we're no longer the number one nation, Connie ... so we are no longer that number one, dominant nation. That's the big change here now."
—
CBS economics reporter Ray Brady on the "Evening News," July 8, 1990.

Branden, Victoria (Humanist writer)

       "I sometimes feel that if I hear one more sanctimonious male voice announce "I'm against abortion," I'm going to start throwing things. If women are not allowed control of their own bodies, why should men be free to do as they like? Supposing women agitate for legal right to force men to have vasectomies — can you imagine the uproar?
       "Lately the anti-choice protestors have argued that, in destroying a fetus, a potentially great mind may be destroyed — killing an Einstein or a Beethoven. On the other hand, we might be sparing the world a Hitler or a mass murderer; this is a good deal more probable, for unwanted children rarely have happy lives or the kind of nurturing that produces great achievers. ... If there's one thing this world doesn't need, it's more people — especially unhappy, maladjusted, abused people who grow up to be child abusers, wife-beaters, and sometimes mass murderers."
—
Victoria Branden. "The Abortion Merry-Go-Round." Humanist in Canada, Autumn 1989, pages 14 to 15.

Brokaw, Tom

       "Do you think this is a party that is dominated by men and this [Republican National] convention is dominated by men as well. ... Do you think before tonight they thought very much what happens in America with rape?"
—
Tom Brokaw to rape victim Jan Licence after her victims-rights speech, August 13, 1996 Republican National Convention coverage.

Brown, James Robert (University of Toronto professor)

       "Fine — just resign from medicine and find another job. Suppose someone [a doctor] said, 'I'm uncomfortable with [treating] a minority,' I'd say, 'So long scum.' Religious beliefs are highly emotional — as is any belief that is affecting your behavior in society. You have no right letting your private beliefs affect your public behavior."
—
Statement of Dr. James Robert Brown, Professor of Science and Religion at the University of Toronto, to the Barrie Examiner, saying that doctors must perform abortions and offer contraception, and, if they refuse, they must get out of medicine. He was commenting on the case of Christian doctor Stephen Dawson of Barrie, Ontario, who refused to prescribe the birth control pill to unmarried women. Quoted in "Christian Doctor Threatened with Loss of License Over Refusing Pill Prescriptions: University of Toronto Prof Says Doctor Unwilling to Perform Abortions Should "Find Another Job"." LifeSite Daily News at http://www.lifesite.net, February 21, 2002 [NOTE:  Note the profoundly stupid assertion by Brown that people should not let their morality guide their behavior. What else guides it if not one's personal morality?]

Buble, Phillip ("zoo couples" activist)

[*]       "'Zoos' are born with a true love for animals and have a lifelong commitment to their care. [Myself and my dog Lady] live together as a married couple. In the eyes of God we are truly married. ... [If Maine passes an anti-bestiality law] it will be a disservice to zoo couples and would keep zoo couples from coming out of the closet and drive us deeper underground. This helps no one and would force me out of state."
—
Phillip Buble, quoted in Mark Steyn. "Animal Husbandry of a Different Nature." National Post, August 16, 2001 [NOTE:  Phillip and his "wife" Lady are campaigning for rights for "zoo couples." "Zoo couples" is the preferred term for human/non-human relationships, "bestiality" carrying somewhat negative connotations].

[*]       "I'd like my significant other to attend by my side if possible as she was present in the house during the attack, though not an eyewitness to it, thank goodness. I've been informed your personal permission is needed given that my wife is not human, being a dog of about 36 pounds weight and very well behaved."
—
Letter from Phillip Buble to Justice Andrew Mead at the Piscataquis County Superior Court. Mark Steyn. "Animal Husbandry of a Different Nature." National Post, August 16, 2001 [NOTE:  The above-quoted letter ended with Phillip Buble's signature and a paw print, underneath the words "Phillip and Lady Buble." Phillip Buble was attacked with a crowbar by his father Frank, who claimed that he was driven to attack his son because he was tired of seeing him performing sexual acts with the dog and could no longer tolerate Phillip's "lifestyle." Frank got eight years in prison for the attack. Justice Mead denied the request].

Budapest, Z (self-proclaimed 'witch')

       "When the moon is full, at sundown, go to a place "wild and lone" (or your own backyard). Place on the ground a map of the United States with the non-ratified states outlined in blood red. On each of the capital cities of each of these non-ratified states, place a red-white and blue candle with the letters E.R.A. scratched onto it three times with a rose thorn. Also place on each capital a black candle inscribed with the names of the people and organizations who are working against the ERA in that state [NOTE:  Black is never used in Wicca ceremonies unless death or 'great evil' is to be directed against someone]. Anoint the triple power candle with seven power oil, the black candle with hecate oil [NOTE:  Hecate oil is another representation of death; Hecate was the Greek goddess of death and the underworld]. You will also need some incense, either high power, high priestess, or dragon's blood.
       "Form a circle around the map. Light the candles, then the incense; inhale the incense while looking at the full moon. To raise power, everyone join hands and hum without strain, a centering sound. The four wimmin standing in the four corners of the Universe (E,S,W,N) within the circle will invoke the Goddess in turn [NOTE:  Here each 'wimmin' recites a lengthy prayer to various goddesses, including Ea, Astarte, Ishtar, Lilith, Esmerelda, Vesta, Aphrodite, and a host of others].
       "All then link arms around the circle and raise more power, concentrating on the non-ratified states. (Chanting would be appropriate here, using chants from ERA demonstrations) [NOTE:  How about a rousing chorus of "not the church, not the state ...?].
       "Offering: mix honey and clear water in a chalice, then pour a small amount on the ground, saying: "To return to you a small portion of that which you have given us so freely." Each womon [sic] then takes the chalice, going clockwise around the circle, and speaks her feeling about the ERA, then drinks. When the chalice has gone all around and all have reaffirmed each others spell, share some in the Goddess' honor.
       "Then take a pair of shears and cut out the [nonratified] states from the map, and burn them in the flames of the candles. Say: "As this paper burns in the flame of the Goddess, so shall the enemies of wimmin be melted against her. The states will grant ratifications in the name of Thekis, Goddess of Social Consciousness."
       "Let the candles burn down at their own pace until done. Gather all the remnants of this spell, including the rest of the map, and throw them into a living body of water."
       "It is done."
—
'Witch' Z. Budapest's spell in aid of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), as described in Z. Budapest. "A Spell for the E.R.A." The Allegheny Feminist [Pennsylvania], July 1978, pages 1 and 7.

Caldicott, Helen

[*]       "If Ronald Reagan is re-elected, accidental nuclear war becomes a mathematical certainty."
—
Environmental activist Helen Caldicott, quoted in "The Week," National Review, April 25, 1986, page 14.

[*]       "Every time you turn on an electric light, you are making another brainless baby."
—
Environmental activist Helen Caldicott, quoted by syndicated columnist Theodore Roszak. "Environmentalists' Wild Alarms Risk Their Cause." The Oregonian, June 14, 1992, pages D7 and D10.

Campbell, Alastair (President of the International Association of Bioethics (IAB))

[*]       "[The purpose of the IAB is] toleration of everything except intolerance. Oppose censorship, oppose dogmatism. But there are limits to toleration, the limits are the violent anti-abortionists of the United States — they are intolerable."
—
IAB President Alastair Campbell, during his November 3, 1998 opening address to the Fourth World Congress of the International Association of Bioethics (IAB) meeting in Tokyo. Quoted in Human Life International's November 6, 1998 Press Advisory, "Pro-Life Group Confronts Japanese Conference Agenda."

Cane, Manny

       "I will be bringing a lawsuit against you and all your colleagues. I have suffered PTSD for years after seeing your ilk's presentation of death in a church — a house of God no less. You will not be allowed to use your shock tactics on children any more. Your tax exempt status will be taken away. Your private lives will be researched. You will lose all your subsidy money.
       "Any group could just as easily start up and fly around brandishing pictures of children dying from malnutrition and neglect, all of which YOU are liable for, because you want to force the procreation of human life, and you do nothing to sustain that which already lives.
       "You are, in effect, guilty of manslaughter, neglect, gross negligence and illegal advertising tactics. You people have caused the death of millions all over the world.
       "The devil must certainly be pround [sic] of you all.
       "SHAME ON YOU!"
—
Rambling e-mail from Manny Cane entitled "Keep your gore to yourself," sent to Gregg Cunningham's Center for Bioethical Reform on July 10, 2002. It seems that Cane was outraged by CBR's flying banners depicted aborted preborn babies. Cunningham's terse reply to Cane's threat was "Bring it on."

Carhart, LeRoy (third-trimester abortionist)

[*]       "In the last quarter of a century, twenty percent of our buildings have been destroyed by arson and bombs. Terrorists have murdered our policemen and guards, as they tried to come to the aid of the innocent victims of the attacks. They have murdered nearly 0.2 percent of our community, in their homes, in front of their children and friends and at their places of work.
       "Some mainstream religious groups support our domestic terrorists. While their religious leaders preach salvation, they fund terrorists to commit arson and murder. Like the September 11th terrorists, domestic terrorists live and work amongst us, as 'sleepers' in our communities. They send their children to our schools, they work out in our gyms and they live a 'normal' life while awaiting their assignments."
—
Third-trimester abortionist Leroy Carhart, in a letter to President George W. Bush, cited by the California Abortion Rights Action League (CARAL) and quoted in "News." Los Angeles Lay Catholic Mission, December 2001, page 13.

Carlson, Margaret (Time Magazine)

       "This is deregulation madness! We're gonna have dirty water, dirty air. OSHA regulations are being rolled back. There's gonna be no competition in the telecommunications industry. And between local cable and local phone, there's not gonna be competition at the present time. It's gonna take awhile and there's gonna be no regulation in the meantime. And so no, he [Clinton] can't go along with this. And the people, the public isn't going to go along with this. They don't want E. coli bacteria in their drinking water."
—
 Time Magazine columnist Margaret Carlson, August 5, 1995 CNN's "Capital Gang."

       "For the fourth time this year Washingtonians were warned to boil the drinking water because more than 10 percent of samples tested positive for bacteria. The warning was lifted late Thursday but not before thousands of people from all over the world, here to see the fireworks in the nation's capital, were treated to water that would embarrass a Third World country and Bob Novak. Maybe this is enough to get your Republicans bent on cutting spending for clean water to reconsider."
—
 Time Magazine columnist Margaret Carlson, July 6, 1996 "Capital Gang."

       "The vocabulary has changed so that tax cuts now look like irresponsible spending and spending on investments and education and Medicare looks like the responsible thing to do because if I get $100 back, I can't go fix a school or clean a river, and people are more interested in these things than they are in the tax cut, and the poll numbers, you know, don't explain this. I mean the only thing that could explain this love of tax cuts is a lowered IQ."
—
 Time Magazine's Margaret Carlson, July 24, 1999 "Capital Gang."

       "Republicans are betting that this too [Columbine] will pass, that as with Jonesboro and Paducah, Pearl and Springfield, once the white coffins are in the ground and the cameras gone, the outrage will subside. But maybe not this time. In town meetings and talk radio, the public has had its fill of politicians talking resignedly about our gun culture, as if there's nothing to be done about a subgroup that finds schoolyard massacres an acceptable cost for its right to be armed to the teeth."
—
 Time Magazine columnist Margaret Carlson, May 10, 1999.

Carville, James

       "The President's [Clinton] attackers are a motley band, consisting primarily of perjuring partisan politicians; strumpets, Nixon apologists, hired guns for cigarette companies, felons, judges who trade favors for jobs; bitter, defeated pathetic former political rivals of the President; Hillary-bashing misogynists; trollops and hate radio hucksters, feeding an endless line of lies and half-truths to jealous journalists and envious editorialists more concerned with their own self-importance and trashing the good reputation of a great state than the truth."
—
James Carville, from the files of the Education and Information Project, his organization (dubbed the "Smear Campaign") which gathered some 40,000 documents on Bill Clinton's political enemies, quoted in The Washington Times and in "Stupid Quotes," The Limbaugh Letter, July 1998, page 8.

'Catholics' for a Free Choice (CFFC) (pro-abortion organization)

       "I've never felt that by taking money from someone indicates that we support them."
—
Frances Kissling, President of 'Catholics' for a Free Choice (CFFC), when questioned about Playboy Magazine funding of CFFC. Quoted in "Playboy Funds Pro-Abortion Group." National Federation for Decency Journal, February 1985, page 16 [NOTE:  Kissling also stated that CFFC would never accept money from Hustler magazine, because, as she put it, "There are boundaries of good taste"].

       "If two healthy, fertile people, very much in love but ignorant of the ways of contraception, are sexually active for a year or more, the probability that a child will be conceived is quite high. It follows that if the two remain chaste for that period of time, the probability that a potential child has been lost is equally high. One can condemn abortion or the prevention of implantation because each results in the sure loss of a potential child, therefore, only if one is prepared to condemn chastity for the same reason. ... If those who tolerate abortion are said to trample on the rights of the unborn, then those who praise chastity may with equal justification be said to trample on the rights of the unconceived."
—
David Randall Luce. "Potential Personhood and the Rights of the Unconceived." Conscience (newsletter of 'Catholics' for a Free Choice), July/August 1986 [Volume VII, Number 4], pages 2 to 5.

       "Thereby they [the Catholic bishops of the United States] hope to lay the groundwork for attaining civil rights for the fetus — civil rights the bishops have consistently refused to support for women [NOTE:  CFFC shows how confused its logic really is with this statement. The bishops want the simple right to live for the preborn child, but CFFC treasures abortion so supremely that it considers life not living without its availability].
       "With this obvious overstatement, he made clear the priorities of the bishops' public policy effort — no issue, no interest, no persons are more important than the fetus. Every other public good is to be sacrificed on the "pro-life" altar [NOTE:  Paterson's silly statement obscures the fact that no right can have any meaning without the right to life, without being born first. Of course it is a priority with the bishops!] ... in spite of their words in support of women's rights the fact remains that the bishops have not fully accepted women as equals in either church or society. ... the winds of repression are already being felt by many Catholics in politics and academia. Strictly dogmatic beliefs and behaviour on sexual issues, especially abortion, have become the test of orthodoxy to which all in the university are expected to conform [NOTE:  Oh, those terrible bishops! How could they actually expect professors at Catholic universities to teach Catholic dogma?!] ... The pressure to conform is so widespread and so insidious that Dr. Mary Buckley, associate professor of theology at St. John's University in New York, says it amounts to "friendly fascism." The Catholic media and the academic communities have begun to censor themselves out of fear of reprisal. She says, "They can't allow themselves to think." [NOTE:  Oh, brother!] ...
       "Clearly, the institutional Roman Catholic Church desires to buttress a status quo that includes discrimination against women. Even more dangerous in terms of cherished American freedoms is the rising evidence that it wants to be free to discriminate against people who merely hold unprescribed opinions about behavior related to abortion and sexual issues. The widely-publicized withdrawal of the Rev. Charles E. Curran's license to teach as a Catholic theologian at Catholic University is the most dramatic of the recent attacks on influential Catholics who favor a less punitive approach to moral issues surrounding sexuality and pregnancy. A respected scholar and popular lecturer for more than 20 years, the theologically mainstream Curran was censured for moderate attitudes toward birth control, abortion, divorce, homosexuality, and premarital intercourse [NOTE:  The "moderate" Curran essentially said that all of these activities were perfectly fine all of the time. This is "moderate?" Once again, CFFC is crying about the right of Catholic universities to actually teach Catholic sexual morality]. ... Many fear that if the Vatican succeeds with Curran, no Catholic professor who expresses dissenting views will be safe. ... Writing in Christianity and Crisis, Christine Gudorf, who teaches theology at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, voiced the objections of many Catholic academics: "In this case, it is important that supporters of Curran speak out on the substantive theological issues as well as issues of process. The area of sexual ethics is a wasteland in the Catholic church. Teachers of Catholic sexual ethics have the choice of either addressing real life with useful critical moral reflection, or being faithful to the magisterium (the official teaching authority of the Catholic church located in the pope and bishops). It is impossible to do both. More bluntly put, one can either be Christian, or one can be faithful to the magisterium" [NOTE:  This goes to the heart of what CFFC thinks — that you cannot be a true Christian if you follow the teachings of the Catholic Church]. ... philosophically and politically, the bishops no longer represent the laity nor, it would seem, the needs of Catholic colleges and universities."
—
Judith Paterson. "The Civil Rights Restoration Act and the Bishops." Essay in "Civil Rights Held Hostage: The United States Catholic Conference and the Civil Rights Restoration Act." 'Catholics' for a Free Choice (CFFC), March 1987, pages 7 to 23.

       "... the church really does not have a viable sexual ethic. ... If the Roman Catholic church is ever to regain credibility in matters of sexuality, it will need to develop an appropriately sophisticated and complicated sexual ethic beyond what it has at present."
—
Kevin Gordon (former member of the 'Catholics' for a Free Choice Board of Directors), who publicly burned Vatican documents he did not agree with. "A Little Secret." Conscience (newsletter of 'Catholics' for a Free Choice), September-December 1987 [Volume VIII, Numbers 5 and 6], pages 14 and 15 [NOTE:  Notice that Gordon wants a complicated sexual ethic, an ethic where any possible sexual perversion can easily be justified and rationalized. This is how the anti-lifers work: They condemn what they call "black and white" thinking, and strive to make as large a "grey area" as possible, in order to give themselves maximum freedom and sow as much doubt and uncertainty as possible. One of the beauties of the Church's teachings is that it is so simple and elegant that anyone can understand it. Six words summarize it: "Abstinence before marriage and faithfulness after." The only people who cannot understand this supremely simple sexual ethic are educated idiots. Those who cannot accept have far worse problems].

       "[Ruth] Riddick says the purpose of the right-to-life movement "has been to deny women opportunity, to deny women choice, to deny women a moral existence." She added, "they are only interested in women in a negative sense."
—
Mary M. Sullivan. "Defying Tradition: One Irish Woman's Struggle for the Right to Choose." Conscience (newsletter of 'Catholics' for a Free Choice), September-December 1987 [Volume VIII, Numbers 5 and 6], pages 20 and 21.

       "Only when abortion is illegal do we find that the ability of some individuals to practice their faith has been compromised [NOTE:  Now getting an abortion is "practicing one's faith]! ... Should we be surprised that the church, which has never done anything to help women fight sex discrimination, is more willing to fight for fetuses than for women? ... If the archbishop truly believed in the sanctity of life, he might not be so willing to sacrifice actual women's lives for the potential person represented by a fetus. ...
       "Is there any way in which the Catholic Church's recommended policy creates a kinder, gentler nation? ... In his zeal to claim the ideals of the "American experiment" for partisan church politics, the archbishop mocks everything that the American model represents. Catholics and other persecuted minorities left the Old World to escape a life in which intolerance and fanaticism were allowed to disrupt the civic order. Those who fled religious persecution were particularly concerned with establishing a nation wherein individuals could conduct their lives in accordance with God and their consciences. We in the New World were to establish a land of liberty and thus become a "beacon for the oppressed," a shining light of hope for the tyrannized peoples of the world. Mahony now seeks to extinguish that light [NOTE:  Good heavens! Have you ever seen such unmitigated garbage?!] ... In the wake of Archbishop Mahony's battle cry of Catholic hegemony, the eyes of all people will now follow not only Mahony and his coercive tactics, but all Catholics officials who threaten the American way of life with religious tyranny."
—
Nancy H. Evans. "Archbishop Mahony's Bully Pulpit." Conscience (newsletter of 'Catholics' for a Free Choice), July/August 1989 [Volume X, Number 4], pages 6 to 9.

       "It is imperative that the reproductive rights movement become much more persuasive in convincing middle-of-the-road Americans that anitchoice is antilife. ... Antichoice is antilife! This is the motto we need to claim. Antichoice fundamentally opposes all the conditions — cultural, medical, and legal — that promote the possibility of a women being able to conceive and bear children when she want them and is best able to care for them. It is fundamentally against the cultural, social, medical, and legal conditions that help societies limit demographic growth and so have some chance of providing adequate food, housing, education, and health care for those children who are born. ...
       "Women have been treated as reproductive vessels to be controlled by male priests, doctors, or social experts, not as moral agents in their own right. This attitude toward women lies at the heart of the antichoice movement and links its adherents to those male family planners who design coercive methods of birth limitation. Both types of men deny the fundamental personhood of women as moral agents."
—
Rosemary Radford Ruether (member of the 'Catholics' for a Free Choice Board of Directors). "Prochoice is Prolife: Winning the Propaganda War for Reproductive Rights." Conscience (newsletter of 'Catholics' for a Free Choice), September/October 1989 [Volume X, Number 5], pages 9 and 10 [emphasis in original].

[*]       "No one delights in having an abortion. The procedure is painful and repugnant. ... Denial to women of their use of the specifically human faculties of intelligence and free will in the fateful area of motherhood is a kind of killing too. ... Mature women are seen as sub-human consciously or unconsciously, in a society that outlaws abortion [NOTE:  So there we have it — we exalt motherhood if we let women kill their children, and dehumanize women if we do not let them kill their children]. ... The more intolerant of abortion a society is, the more abortions are performed, legally or illegally" [NOTE:  This is a profoundly stupid statement. We challenge CFFC to name one other act that would become more popular if it was criminalized].
—
Harriette Lane Baggett. "A Place for Pragmatism." Conscience (newsletter of 'Catholics' for a Free Choice), January/February 1991 [Volume XII, Number 2], pages 12 and 13.

       "The book [Uta Ranke-Heinemann's Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven], a best seller in Germany and Italy, examines the church's degradation of women and its subversion of sexuality."
—
"In the News: Full Dust Jacket." Conscience (newsletter of 'Catholics' for a Free Choice), January/February 1991 [Volume XII, Number 2], page 22.

       "Yet, while flashy, deceptive rhetoric seldom is considered the ethical or moral approach, opponents of choice make regular use of such illegitimate rhetorical strategies. ... It is time we became concerned with the ways in which antichoice rhetorical strategies are deceptive and hypocritical and time we find means to overcome them. ...
       "Slogans have always been in the propagandist's armamentarium. Like poetry, they circumvent reason or overwhelm it by emotion. They sound good, through alliteration and euphony, and they feel compelling, playing into our deepest hopes and fears. They are memorable because of catch phrases, even if they don't make much sense. ... Debaters who believe their positions are right will choose language that does not intentionally create ambiguities or otherwise mislead listeners.
       "As much as a first-trimester fetus is like a baby, it is even more unlike one. In a first-trimester fetus, the central nervous system has yet to achieve the level of development and integration necessary for sentience or pain. It has the potential for these things, but potential is not actuality, or I could write this article by merely thinking about it. ... But to say that, because the fetus has this potential, we cannot destroy it, is equivalent to arguing that because an infant will in time become able to speak and make intelligent choices, we should allow babies to vote.
       "Something with the major gaps that a fetus has in its nervous system does not fit that [human] category. It may be potentially human, but is not yet human, and to destroy it is not murder. Arguably, to destroy that which cannot sustain life even briefly on its own is not even "killing."
       "... any person or organization claiming a "pro-life" position would have to take a public, explicit, and unambiguous stand that was: antiwar; opposed to capital punishment; absolutist; in favor of contraception and sex education; opposed to violence, including clinic-blockade tactics — such as obstruction, jeering and shoving — that incite violence, as violence tends to lead to injury and death [NOTE:  She says above that "potential" does not necessarily lead to reality for the preborn child, but that it probably will with clinic blockades. Such inconsistency!]
       "The underlying emotion of "prolife" people is not love but fear, which is at least as strong a motivator but is less comfortably admitted.
       "... if we continue to be respectful and legitimate, we soon may be scouring the closet for metal [coat] hangers. ... If their side airs commercials with cuddly babies, how about a few with terrified teenagers — children like your own — encountering filthy back-alley abortionists? Or ads using narratives by women who underwent illegal abortions, with horrendous results? Not sufficiently dramatic? How about hooded Inquisitors stretching women on the rack: "Who did it? Where do we find him?" Or Gestapo types breaking into a sterile operating room, destroying science?"
—
Robin Tolmach Lakoff. "The Rhetoric of Reproduction." Conscience (newsletter of 'Catholics' for a Free Choice), Summer 1992 [Volume XV, Number 1], pages 4 to 12.

       "And we know that to be "prochoice," to affirm the value of women's lives and moral agency, is the most radically prolife, genuinely biophilic orientation. Women's moral agency on our own terms — the development of feminist, womanist ethics — is a direct contradiction to patriarchy. ... To assert our right to choose is to assert that, even more fundamentally than being "she who can bear children," a women is "she who can create values." ... When women assert our right to reproductive choice, we are asserting our right to make our own world of values, which shatters the standard patriarchal claim to ethical hegemony. ... We are now in a position to see that it is particularly on the denial of women's right to reproductive choice that this male ethical hegemony, and the whole edifice of patriarchy, is based. ... Abortion, and the fact that women may under certain conditions recognize it as a morally defensible choice, especially breaches the patriarchal definition of society. ... I want to conclude by re-emphasizing that the taboo is not simply against committing the act of abortion, but against committing the act of ethical choice. When we see that the deeper taboo is against women acting as moral agents (that is, shapers of culture), we can more easily see the connections among all the manifestations of reproductive choice that patriarchy would deny us. ... As we have seen, asserting ourselves as ethical agents breaks such a root paradigm of patriarchy that it is a profound move globally towards women's liberation. We are equal to the task."
—
Emily Erwin Culpepper. "She Who Creates Values." Conscience (newsletter of 'Catholics' for a Free Choice), Summer 1992 [Volume XIII, Number 2], pages 14 to 18 [emphasis in original].

       "What has the white, male lawgiver to say to any of us? To those of us who love life too much to willingly bring more children into a world saturated by death?
       "Abortion, for many women, is more than an experience of suffering beyond anything most men will ever know; it is an act of mercy, and an act of self-defense.
       "To make abortion illegal again is to sentence millions of women and children to miserable lives and even more miserable deaths.
       "Given his history, in relation to us, I think the white man should be ashamed to attempt to speak for the unborn children of the black women. To force us to have children for him to ridicule, drug and turn into killers and homeless wanderers is a testament to his hypocrisy."
—
Alice Walker. "Right to Life: What Can the White Man Say to the Black Woman?" Conscience (newsletter of 'Catholics' for a Free Choice), Summer 1992 [Volume XIII, Number 2], pages 26 and 27 [emphasis in original].

       "We have seen an enormous conservative tide in our society, and we are seeing the destruction of the civil rights movement. When we have a society that no longer can acknowledge the rights of racial minorities, how can we expect people to acknowledge the rights of women, rights which are indeed even more fragile than those of racial and ethnic minorities in our society?"
—
Frances Kissling, President of 'Catholics' for a Free Choice (CFFC). "The Challenge of Prochoice Politics." Conscience (newsletter of 'Catholics' for a Free Choice), Spring/Summer 1993 [Volume XIV, Numbers 1 and 2], pages 39 and 40.

       "While practices such as genital mutilation of female children and adolescents, which affects an estimated 85 to 114 million females around the world, involve obscene denials of bodyright, western cultures deny bodyright in ways only slightly more subtle. Parents, teachers, health care professionals, neighbors, and friends routinely fail to respect children's right to make choices about what happens to their bodies. Decisions about what they will eat and wear, who will touch and care for them, the very schedules on which their bodies operate, are set by others. Given what we know about the damage inflicted on self by denial of bodyright in sexual abuse, how can we ignore the less dramatic but still detrimental effects of systematic and virtually universal denial of bodyright to children?
       "Our society's refusal to acknowledge children's bodyright has even distorted our efforts to protect children from sexual abuse. Much too much of the attempt to teach children to refuse sexual abuse focuses on separating sexual and nonsexual touch under the guise of bad touch and good touch. Sexual touch is not bad touch. Bad touch is any touch that is unwanted [NOTE:  The North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) says exactly the same thing, as it attempts to legalize and legitimize the sexual abuse of children].        "Much too often, rather than take the time and effort to explain to a child why, for example, the child needs an immunization she does not want, we restrain her and give the immunization. When we do this we teach children that individuals have no bodyright, that those who are bigger and more powerful control the bodies of those who are smaller and weaker.
—
Christine E. Gudorf. "Embodying Morality: Bodyright is the Foundation for Moral Agency." Conscience (newsletter of 'Catholics' for a Free Choice), Winter 1993/1994 [Volume XIV, Number 4] pages 16 to 21 [italics in the original].

       "Humanae Vitae belongs not to the infallible but to the ordinary magisterium. A future pope may state doctrine contrary to that proposed by Paul VI. ...
       "While we may consider certain behavior morally wrong, somebody in his or her conscience may see no error or wrongdoing in it and thus commits no moral error in engaging in that behavior (Gaudium et Spes 26) [NOTE:  In fact, this encyclical says nothing at all about this topic, even in paragraph 26]. That is to say, act can be considered morally wrong only in an individual's conscience. And because only God can judge conscience, nobody can declare a specific human behavior "intrinsically wrong" [NOTE:  Really? How about rape? Murder? Child molestation? Or, dare we say it, killing an abortionist?]
       "Theologians have been practically unanimous: in the end, it is up to couples to search their consciences and decide, before God, whether they should use artificial contraceptive methods or not. If they do this, they commit no subjective moral error.
—
Alberto Munera, S.J. "Catalyst for Moral Thinking." Conscience (newsletter of 'Catholics' for a Free Choice), Winter 1993/1994 [Volume XIV, Number 4], page 38. This article is part of the commentary "Tarnished Silver Anniversary: Reflections on Humanae Vitae."

[*]       "We have never received financing from Planned Parenthood, nor from any corporate source, including contraceptive companies. We did receive several small grant totaling about $20,000 from the Playboy Foundation in the early 1980s. At that time, we viewed it as reparation for the magazine's sexism."
—
Frances Kissling, President of 'Catholics' for a Free Choice (CFFC), quoted in "CFFC Notebook." Conscience (newsletter of 'Catholics' for a Free Choice), Winter 1993/1994 [Volume XIV, Number 4] pages 50 to 52 [NOTE:  We might ask CFFC: Did Playboy Magazine suddenly stop being "sexist?" We don't think so!].

       "According to statistics published by various health organizations, it is estimated that in Brazil there are millions of illegal abortions annually, with maternal mortality at 10 percent ... Decriminalizing abortion could be considered an approach that perpetuates institutionalized violence, a kind of violent response to a violent situation. But such a thesis would not apply only if the thousands of abortions and women's deaths did not in fact already exist [NOTE:  This is so profoundly stupid a statement that it is almost mind-boggling. We would never apply such twisted 'logic' to any other situation. For example, try replacing the word "abortion" with "lynching" and see how idiotic it sounds] ... My position with regard to decriminalized and legalized abortion, as a citizen, a Christian, and a member of a religious community, is one of denouncing the evil, and the hypocrisy that envelop us. It is testimony for life; it is in defense of life."
—
"Statement of Ivone Gebara." Conscience (newsletter of 'Catholics' for a Free Choice), Summer 1994 [Volume XV, Number 2], page 37 [NOTE:  This pro-abortionist is saying that there are at least 100,000 deaths annually in Brazil due to illegal abortions. Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) figures have showed that only 55,066 Brazilian women between the ages of 14 and 50 died of all causes in 1980. The IBGE figures were confirmed by World Health Organization (WHO) statistics showing that 41,685 Brazilian women between the ages of 15 and 41 died in 1986 and, of these, 241 died of complications due to both legal and illegal abortions (November 13, 1991. Reuters news service releases of various titles to newspapers all over the world. Also see the December 30, 1991 letter of Dr. Geraldo Hideu Osanai, President, Associacao Pro-Vida de Brasilia to Andrew M. Nibley and Thomas D. Thompson of the Reuters News Agency in New York City). This means that Gebara is exaggerating the true numbers by a minimum of (100,000/241) = 41,500 percent!]

       "I know America is not a good place to be a child. I was one myself, and I hated it. It was without dignity, without respect. I was jerked around, dumped on, lined up in size place, annoyed with nonsense, and generally made miserable on a regular basis. ...
       "Actually, every time you put the words pain, suffer, and children in the same sentence, the word innocent pops up, with its attendant assumption that somebody must be guilty. We speak highly of children in America, as innocent, pure, precious. But as a society we probably take better care of our shoes, and we certainly take better care of our cars. If we simply acknowledge that straight out, acknowledge and recognize and own up that our society, along with many other societies, does not like or value or appreciate or welcome children, a lot or our questions shift. ... So if we start out by recognizing that American society basically hates children, and is not too fond of women either, then the question is not what evil is done to children and their mothers, but which people have the resources to buy out of the evil that comes one's way inevitably with motherhood. ... "
—
Barbara Katz Rothman. "Book Reviews: If They're Innocent, Who's Guilty?" Conscience (newsletter of 'Catholics' for a Free Choice), Autumn 1994 [Volume XV, Number 3], pages 43 and 44.

       "... but the pope has not gone far enough in applying it [NOTE:  The principle that only men can be Catholic priests]. If we are to take the Lord's way of acting as a perennial norm, we must be more selective than we have been. It is not enough to restrict the priesthood to men. The Lord's way of acting in this matter did not stop at a male monopoly on the priesthood. There was for example, the Jewish monopoly. The Lord only chose Jews for his apostles. ... Those priests now in ministry must produce evidence of their Jewish descent. ... The lord also chose married men as his apostles — certainly in the case of Peter, and probably (given the culture) in that of the others as well. ... this pope, if he is to take the Lord's way of acting as a perennial norm must, instantly go and find a wife in order to conform to Peter's example. This, of course, assumes that the pope has not already had to resign because of his lack of Jewish parentage. Perhaps by stretching the case a little (even perennial norms must have a little "give"), he could qualify by first converting to Judaism and then reconverting to Christianity. ...
       "The apostles spoke Aramaic and a little Greek. Stretching things again, the pope can perhaps give priests a dispensation from speaking Aramaic, but they must certainly get back to speaking Greek. ...
       "What a sigh of relief we can imagine from the small number of male, married, Jewish, Greek-speaking priests when they are told that at least, in imitation of the way the Lord acted, they need not write anything. If only the pope had adopted that perennial norm before penning his words on women's ordination."
—
Garry Wills. "Women Priests? The Gospel Truth." Conscience (newsletter of 'Catholics' for a Free Choice), Spring/Summer 1995 [Volume XVI, Numbers 1 and 2], page 45.

       "This is a man [John Cardinal O'Connor] who longs for the imperial papacy — a papacy where you had the power to burn people at the stake. When it comes to matters of internal church discipline, he is the toughest, and the meanest."
—
Frances Kissling, President of 'Catholics' for a Free Choice (CFFC), quoted in E. Bumiller. "As Pope's Important Ally, Cardinal Shines High in Hierarchy." New York Times, October 8, 1995, page 41.

       "Down the centuries and today, men shaping and carrying on world traditions, such as Christianity, deny women's right to free reproductive on the same grounds on which they deny women's right to free choice in countless other areas. Women, they premise, are in fact humanly inferior to men. ... I believe that this equality and these rights of women still are consistently, sweepingly, viciously, atrociously violated by men in all cultures I know of, especially the one I live in. ...
       "If I had needed further evidence, my experience here would have settled for me now superior women are to men in that they can give birth to new human beings. I am not surprised at how persistently male church leaders have put down normal human birth, for example, by the doctrine of the "virgin birth" or by "churching" rituals after birth or by stressing the great "birth" of baptism, usually preformed by priests. ...
—
John Giles Milhaven (former member of the 'Catholics' for a Free Choice Board of Directors). "In What Are Women Equal to Men?: Finding Words for What We Know by Intuition." Conscience (newsletter of 'Catholics' for a Free Choice), Winter 1995/1996 [Volume XVI, Number 4], pages 2 to 6.
"Your Holiness;

       "... Like the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin, violence against medical workers who perform abortions implicates the violent language in which some religious leaders condemn them. You speak of abortion as "murder," "crimes which no human law can claim to legitimize," "the deliberate killing of an innocent human being," etc. Continuous exhortations in such terms inevitably incite unbalanced and impressionable minds. Spurred on by religious leaders, among whom you are the foremost, these people direct their hatred and violence against people like me who not only provide abortion services to women but also believe abortion to be a woman's right. ... It is estimated by the World Health Organization that 200,000 women die each year as a result of such [illegal] abortions. ... I appeal to you to stop using "murder," "the killing" of the "innocent," and similar inflammatory terms, which incite indignation, anger, hate, and violence. Please refrain from comparing abortion to the Holocaust. As a survivor of the Holocaust, I personally find such a comparison gratuitous, insulting, and obscene. Many people, in particular Jews, share my feelings about this.
       "How can you compare the willful, deliberate genocide of the Jews by the German state, directed by a hate-filled psychopath, to individual decisions by women to choose abortion when they find themselves unable to assume the obligations and duties of motherhood, decisions which many people consider ethical, moral, and responsible? How can you compare pre-cerebral embryos and fetuses to real live people as if they had the same value?"
       "Should you be able to moderate your views and teachings on abortion, or at least to moderate your condemnation and exhortations to the faithful to follow your position, it could possibly save lives. ... Recently you offered a belated acknowledgement of the legitimacy of the striving of women for emancipation. I see this as a hopeful sign that maybe you could still change some of your attitudes regarding the teachings of the church on birth control and abortion ..."
—
Canadian abortionist Henry Morgentaler's "open letter" to Pope John Paul II. "Violent Words, Violent Deeds." Conscience (newsletter of 'Catholics' for a Free Choice), Autumn 1996 [Volume XVII, Number 3], pages 7 to 9.

       "In a marked contrast to the Catholic Church immediately following the Second Vatican Council ... our current era is characterized by a leadership intent on controlling its people and regulating behavior in matters relating to sexuality, reproduction, and gender. ... What motivates the church to invest such prodigious energy and so much of its moral authority in sexuality and reproduction? ... Traditional Catholic teachings on contraception, reproduction, and women are intertwined with attitudes towards women and sexuality that are deeply rooted in a tradition of patriarchy, misogyny, and asceticism. ... these debates involve the church's more fundamental struggle to maintain power that is based on dominance of male over female, celibate over sexual, clerical over lay, and traditional over modern. ...
       "A new low in these efforts was the Vatican's decision in November to withdraw its symbolic support for UNICEF. ... UNICEF is the latest target of the Vatican's obsession with enforcing its absolutist line on family planning. Once again, the church leadership has chosen to squander its moral and political capital on these issues. ... Many Catholics wonder what positive strides might have been made has the Vatican and the hierarchy not squandered the church's moral authority on obsession with sexuality and reproduction, but focused instead on calling us to task for our failures to address the world's grinding injustice and poverty."
—
Kathy Toner. "Is Anyone Listening: On Sexual and Reproductive Ethics, the Gap between Hierarchy and Laity is Global." Conscience, Winter 1996/1997 [Volume XVII, Number 4], pages 3 to 5.

       "For the Vatican to use its symbolic donor role to intimidate and force an independent charity to follow Roman Catholic policies on family planning services, including contraception and abortion, falls far short of a Christian approach to charity," said CFFC president Frances Kissling. "It will be an acute embarrassment to Catholics worldwide. The strong arm tactics of Vatican officials cannot go unchallenged." ... Perhaps it is time that the Vatican though a little more carefully about real family values before dashing off press releases that take cheap shots at UNICEF and, ultimately, cheap shots at children."
—
"CFFC Notebook." Conscience, Winter 1996/1997 [Volume XVII, Number 4], page 34.

       "The religious wing of the antiabortion movement fails to communicate a sacred regard for creation by limiting its arguments to human life alone. When prolife politics excludes trees, oceans, animals, or victims of AIDS, warfare, and capital punishment, religious language may amount to nothing more than slogans that play well in the media [NOTE:  This is a classic statement of the "seamless garment" that tries to dilute pro-life efforts by saying that you can't really be pro-life unless you do a hundred other things that the pro-aborts believe in. It is the sheerest nonsense]. ... support for abortion in cases of rape and incest exemplifies the secular manipulation of religious sentiment. If the morality of the antichoice platform is based on protecting the fetus, then it is illogical — and irreverent — to suggest that any fetus qualifies for the death sentence. ...
       "... since men cannot deny to women their power to give life, they will try — as they have done historically — to deny to women the power to take it. ... Prochoice/antiabortion indicates an acceptance of how painful and problematic abortion so often is for everyone involved — parents, families, doctors, and counselors. ... Abortion was the precarious safety net waiting to catch the fallout from experimental forays into what we willfully called "sexual liberation." It was our ally, ignorantly touted as a form of birth control and valued as an extension of forbidden pleasures. Abortion was no necessary evil. Many of us were for abortion. ... while dharma discourses abound on how to show compassion for cows and carrots or fleas and lice, in Buddhist cultures abortion is not openly addressed. ...
       "What counts," explains [vipassana teacher Sylvia] Boorstein, "is procarefulness. Procontraception. Proattention, prothoughtfulness. Prothoughtfulness with regard to sex is an expression of a sexuality that is nonexploitative, not compulsive. There is a way to have a compassionate abortion that involves the recognition that is not the right time for this plant to flourish." ... Buddhist teachers also speak of the capacity of those who have passed from this sphere of existence to choose their next set of parents, and therefore participate in addressing their own karmic needs. Presumably this includes choosing wombs that carry to term and those that do not. ... Zen gardens do not tolerate weeds. Do weeds have a right to live? Or unwanted fetuses? ... Humans have no more inherent right to live than they have the right to decide that garden weeds or livestock are born to die. This belief in the "right" to life reflects the Western impulse to control and shape reality, to project into life values that embrace human, as well as individual, supremacy. ..."
—
Helen Tworkov. "Antiabortion/Prochoice: Taking Both Sides: The Heated Abortion Debates of the 1992 Elections Prompted a Buddhist to Explore Her Faith's Views of "The Great Matter of Life and Death"." Conscience, Spring 1997 [Volume XVIII, Number 1], pages 8 to 13.

       "You can't be pro-religious without being prochoice, because the whole Bible speaks about choice and speaks about free moral agency [NOTE:  Perhaps he is looking at a different Bible].
       "He [Veazey] ]asserts that "raising up a woman's right to choose" must be balanced by a recognition of the sacredness of life [NOTE:  It is never balanced. For all pro-aborts, especially the so-called 'religious' ones, the woman's right to choose always outweighs and trumps the sacredness of preborn human life].
—
Adele M. Stan. "A Healing Kind of Thing: The Reverend Carlton W. Veazey Talks About His Work With the Black Religious Community on Sexuality and Reproductive Health." Conscience, Spring 1997 [Volume XVIII, Number 1], pages 19 to 21 [NOTE:  Not surprisingly, Veazey is the director of the pro-abortion front group 'Religious' Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC)].

       "Many Catholics, especially those concerned with social justice, seer the hierarchy's attempts to remove contraceptive choice from the poor as a form of religious, if not cultural, imperialism. Can the institutional church in the United States honestly battle to deny contraceptive choice to the poor and powerless in foreign lands when they have long since lost this war on the home front?"
—
"CFFC Notebook: Humanae Vitae's Hangover." Conscience, Spring 1997 [Volume XVIII, Number 1], page 30.

       "For the past decade, the Religious Right has carried on an intensive campaign to terrorize young people into chastity by persuading them that there's no "safer sex." ... "When will you be ready for sex?" the most extreme abstinence education lesson plans ask rhetorically. "When you're ready to die." In its effect on sexual education curricula — that is, on school administrators — this campaign has been extraordinarily successful. It's difficult to teach much of anything beyond abstinence in public high schools today" [NOTE:  They must be kidding! How many times have we heard about filthy Planned Parenthood-style comprehensive sex ed corrupting the minds and souls of our children?]
       "My study began, in large part, out of a determination that girls have the chance to be heard — to hear each other — above the fundamentalist din largely stirred up, as I saw it, by conservatives in the Catholic church. ...
       "Still others are convinced that marriage is the only proper way to deal with love and desire. If they have had or want to have sex they have to get married. Age is irrelevant. If having a baby will persuade their parents to let them marry, they'll try it, because marriage will turn them back into good girls, pleasing to God and their church. ...
       "Many immigrant groups share the conservative views on sexuality that decrease the likelihood of using protection and contraception. In addition, the Religious Right has widely promoted such views. In fact, the taboos and terrors that lead to unprotected teenage sex are often the primary curriculum in what now passes for sexual education in public high schools.
       "Teenagers who believe that sex is bad, that good girls never have it, that it's bad to plan for it, that they don't have the right, or the capacity, to be both safe and sexual, don't use contraception. Abstinence-only sex education programs often contribute to these negative views of sexuality and they do nothing to teach teenagers to protect themselves against unwanted pregnancies of sexually transmitted infections if they do become sexually active. Fortunately, the majority of teens seem to understand that adults have it all wrong and are doing, as they often put it, "what you have to do."
       "If the Religious Right can import the dogma of abstinence into public schools, religious feminists who reach out to teenagers in their own communities can surely bring their own sense of sexual entitlement — and responsibility — to the girls who need it most, the daughters of their own churches."
—
Sharon Thompson. "Doing What You Have to Do: Young Women Tell Why They Do — and Do Not — Use Contraceptives." Conscience (newsletter of 'Catholics' for a Free Choice), Summer 1997 [Volume XVIII, Number 2], pages 27 to 30.

       "Shelly herself finally reached down and drew the child wholly out from her body and held it high for herself and the rest of us to see! If I had needed further evidence my experience here would have settled for me how superior women are to men in that they can give birth to new human beings. I am not surprised at how persistently male church leaders have put down normal human birth, for example, by the doctrine of the 'virgin birth' or by 'churching' rituals after birth or by stressing the great 'birth' of baptism, usually performed by priests."
—
Giles Milhaven, former member of the CFFC Board of Directors. "... and a Time to Uproot." Conscience (newsletter of 'Catholics' for a Free Choice), Summer 1997 [Volume XVIII, Number 2], page 45.

       "Christianity went one better: women (and men) transmitted sin, original sin, to every newborn baby. Only priests have the power to remove this "stain" from the little one's soul. ... [former CFFC Board member Giles Milhaven] said that] "It is no wonder that we men are afraid of women and that we try to keep them down, for what I just witnessed this day [the birth of a baby] is a stupendous feat of power and strength. We men are afraid of such power and strength. We fear and deny women's superiority."
—
Anne Lally Milhaven. "The Inferior Mix: The Real Reasons Why the Catholic Church Does Not Ordain Women." Conscience, Autumn 1997 [Volume XVIII, Number 3], pages 12 to 14.

       "The question of when and under what circumstances sex is permitted is key — and for almost all of Christianity the sacralization of marriage is the problem, for sex is only redeemed in marriage. ... I cannot doubt that mortification for religious reasons at times stirred sexual feelings in those who practiced it, as their writings use the language of sexuality to describe their experiences, just as people today experience sexual pleasure in S/M [NOTE:  S&M is shorthand for sado-masochism, where people torture each other for pleasure]. ... In our own time, much "sexual" and "blasphemous" art is related to the church's condemnation of homosexuality, contraception and abortion. The work of Serrano, McNally, Durang and even Frank McCourt in "Angela's Ashes" reflects the pain Catholicism caused these artists. The extent to which blasphemy today is seen by the right only in relation to sexual images and themes is a reflection of the extent to which the hierarchy of the church has reduced moral teachings to issues of sexuality and reproduction, ignoring justice and relationship. ... The only marriage that is permissible is that in which procreation is possible, even if remote and unlikely. That rules out homosexual marriages and therefore homosexual sex (This is the official view, not mine). ... Why are so many Catholics, indeed so many Christians, so silent in the face of continued harmful sexual teachings? Why has no one articulated a truly open and honest alternative vision of a sexual ethic that serves people? ... My mother was divorced and remarried so early on I separated church teachings which considered my mother an adulteress from reality — I knew my mother was not going to hell for having sex with her second husband. ... My sexual life has been shaped far more by my sexual desires, needs and partners than by religion. It has a spiritual dimension, but not a religious one. I really think God cares very little about the sexual rules, about who is sleeping with whom, other than to wish that we treat each other well and with respect."
—
Quotes by Frances Kissling, President of 'Catholics' for a Free Choice (CFFC), in "Divine Ecstasy: Sin, Asceticism and Sexuality in the Catholic Tradition." Nerve.com's interview of cultural critic Camille Paglia, ex-priests Robert Francouer and Thomas Moore, religion professor Elaine Pagels, and Frances Kissling. March 30, 1999. Downloaded from http://www.nerve.com/Dispatches/voicebox/religion on May 17, 2001 (no longer available).

       "I think that the Church's position on abortion is just bad Catholicism. It practically defiles the Declaration on Religious Freedom, is certainly inconsistent with any concept of social justice, and is effectively a prescription for mother death."
—
Joseph P. O'Rourke, former President of 'Catholics' for a Free Choice, quoted in William McGurn. "Catholics & 'Free Choice'." National Catholic Register, February 14, 1982, 1, 6 and 7.

       "The Vatican and the world's bishops bear significant responsibility for the death of thousands of people who have died from AIDS. For individuals who follow the Vatican policy and Catholic health care providers who are forced to deny condoms, the bishops' ban is a disaster. We can no longer stand by and allow the ban to go unchallenged."
—
Frances Kissling, President of 'Catholics' for a Free Choice (CFFC), in a CFFC press release on the "condoms 4 life" campaign. Quoted in Kathryn Jean Lopez. "Aborting the Church: Frances Kissling and Catholics for a Free Choice." Crisis Magazine, April 2002, pages 20 to 26.

       "We need to seek out the most compassionate way of weeding out people. It is not 'pro-life' to allow unrestrained fertility. ... A good gardener weeds and thins his seedlings to allow the proper amount of room for the plants to grow properly .... Our current pro-life movement is actually killing people through disease and poverty .... [I recommend a] spirituality of recycling, a spirituality that includes ourselves in the renewal of earth and self. We need to compost ourselves. ... We need to return to the population level of 1930."
—
Rosemary Radford Ruether (former member of the 'Catholics' for a Free Choice Board of Directors). Quoted in Michael S. Rose. "Feminist Theologian Urges Religious to Find a Way to 'Weed Out People'." The Wanderer, June 11, 1998, page 1. The last sentence is from her presentation at a 1998 Call to Action conference, quoted in Ann Sheridan. "CTA Conference Presents the Reality of Unreality." The Wanderer, November 12, 1998, page 1. Also quoted in "War on the Faith: How Catholics for a Free Choice Seeks to Undermine the Catholic Church" [New York City: Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute], White Paper Number One, 2002, page 13.

[*]       "The Netherlands has pioneered progressive sexual and reproductive health policies and as a result has an extremely low abortion rate and one of the highest rates of contraceptive use in the world [NOTE:  It can boast a "very low" abortion rate because menstrual extraction, or ME, is widely used, and does not count in the abortion figures] ... Just as Noah's Ark was a refuge from destruction, it was also a means of protection for the diversity of life, so too the Aurora protects women's right to choose and hails the creation of new ways to defend women's sexual and reproductive rights."
—
"Making Waves: Will Women on Waves Advance Reproductive Rights in the 21st Century?" Conscience (newsletter of 'Catholics' for a Free Choice), Spring 2002 [Volume XXIII, Number 1], pages 5 to 8.

       "This policy [against condoms] is literally killing people by the thousands every day. The church's statements have only made me more angry, filled, as they are, with half-truths and dogma."
—
Letter from Gary Rose of New York City to Conscience (newsletter of 'Catholics' for a Free Choice), Spring 2002 [Volume XXIII, Number 1], page 43 [NOTE:  And, of course, people like this believe that sodomy, fornication, prostitution and all the rest don't contribute to the problem in the least].