 Abortion is a question of choice. |
| However, we might oppose it, abortion is a sad feature of modern life. |
| Tolerance is the price we pay for living in a free, pluralistic society. |
| By rejecting abortion-on-demand, we can move our party back to the mainstream. |
| From the beginning, each human embryo has its own unique genetic identity. |
| I come to urge my party to be open to debate and discussion; to move away from a lock-step litmus test which advocates abortion on demand in an effort to reach a broader national consensus. |
| A 1990 Gallup poll found that 77 percent of Americans polled said abortion was the taking of human life. I agree, and believe that taking the life on an innocent child is unjust. |
| The abortion license has not brought freedom and security to women. Rather, it has ushered in a new era of irresponsibility toward women and children, one that now begins before birth. |
| Who belongs to the community of the commonly protected? |
| In this generation, the issue pressing that question on our consciences is the issue of abortion. |
| In short, our response as a party should be to work to solve the crises that produce crisis pregnancies, and work to make life worth living for mother and child, rather than victimize the child as a way of dealing with the crisis. |
| The advocates of abortion on demand falsely assume two things: that women must suffer if the lives of unborn children are legally protected; and that women can only attain equality by having the legal option of destroying their innocent offspring in the womb. |
| Abortion on demand, throughout the full nine months of a pregnancy, for virtually any reason, became public policy in the United States of America. No other developed democracy had, or has, such a permissive abortion regime. |
| Whose rights will we acknowledge? Whose human dignity will we respect? For whose well-being will we, as a people, assume responsibility? |
| My strong personal view, which I believe is shared by millions of Americans, is that our party should make a strong statement in its platform that the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which should be protected. |
| I am fairly certain that my abortion position hurt me, because in a Democratic primary, where turnout is relatively low, liberal voters turn out in disproportionately large numbers and thus exercise a disproportionate influence on the outcome. |
| Abortion is defended today as a means of ensuring the equality and independence of women, and as a solution to the problems of single parenting, child abuse, and the feminization of poverty. |
| Today, the growing economic and social pressures in our country are putting millions of women, children and families at increased risk of abuse and neglect, especially when families are denied basic support services and economic opportunity. |
| We have had virtually unlimited access to abortion for nearly twenty years. Yet during that same period, more and more women and children have slipped into poverty. |
| Indeed, an entire generation of Americans has grown to adulthood since the Roe decision of 1973, which held that the right to choose an abortion was a privacy right protected by our Constitution. |
