A Quote by Katha Pollitt

Abortion opponents know full well that the public would not abide putting women in prison en masse. Politically, it's more palatable to portray them as irrational, ignorant, and childlike, perhaps even temporarily insane.
Anger is a choice, as well as a habit. It is a learned reaction to frustration, in which you behave in ways that you would rather not. In fact, severe anger is a form of insanity. You are insane whenever you are not in control of your behavior. Therefore, when you are angry and out of control, you are temporarily insane.
Abortion opponents say women seek abortions in haste and confusion. Pro-choicers reply: Abortion is the most difficult, agonizing decision a woman ever makes.
It seems to be very hard for people to live with riddles or to let them live, although one would think that life is so full of riddles as it is that a few more things we cannot answer would make no difference. But perhaps it is just this that is so unendurable, that there are irrational things in our own psyche which upset the conscious mind in its illusory certainties by confronting it with the riddle of its existence.
Carpet bombing tends to portray something that's totally indiscriminate, you know, en masse without regard to the target.
I am in no position to judge other women, you know. But I mean, why did she get pregnant? It's not good for women to go through the procedure of abortion and have something living sucked out of their bodies. It belittles women. Even though some women say, 'Oh, I don't mind to have one,' every time a woman has an abortion, it just crushes her self-esteem smaller and smaller and smaller.
Because we don't know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, an afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more, perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps 20. And yet it all seems limitless.
The prison industrial complex is perhaps, at least domestically, the most striking example of us putting profit before people. It all stems from one basic misunderstanding: that the public good can be shepherded by private interests.
There's absolutely nothing irrational about me; insane, yes, irrational, no. But my dumbest fear would be spinning in the magic tea cups. Who the hell wants to pay to spin around like a bent yoyo for laughs?
And perhaps the best answer is not to tolerate differences, not even to accept them. But to celebrate them. Maybe then those who are different would feel more loved, and less, well, tolerated.
Perhaps what distinguishes my characters is their courage and spirit and a certain stubbornness which enables them to keep going even when facing a setback. I think this developed organically as I wrote, but also it came out of a desire to portray women as powerful and intelligent forces in the world.
If enough people are sensitive to the tragedy of Tibet, I think it will produce a change politically as well. But furthermore, it's important for the people in Tibet. Now communication is such [that] people know what is happening. Even Tibetan people would know that the Interfaith or the international group of religious people - that everybody who is religious is taking up their cause. It would help them a lot if we give them courage, and that in itself is enough.
Women are as much politicians as men, and I hope that more and more women will enter public life through politics, as this would not only increase participation of women in public life but also have a salutary effect for the amelioration of women's status in India.
Since 'Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights' came out, I've done a fair amount of public speaking, and the two statistics that always make the audience sit up are that nearly one in three women will have had at least one abortion by menopause and 61 percent of women who have abortions are already mothers.
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.
Here is the trap you are in.... And it's not my trap—I haven't trapped you. Because abortions are illegal, women who need and want them have no choice in the matter, and you—because you know how to perform them—have no choice, either. What has been violated here is your freedom of choice, and every woman's freedom of choice, too. If abortion was legal, a woman would have a choice—and so would you. You could feel free not to do it because someone else would. But the way it is, you're trapped. Women are trapped. Women are victims, and so are you.
Planned Parenthood is a pretty popular organization. Way more popular than Congress! It claims that one in five women have received care from one of its clinics. And this care, despite what abortion opponents say, is excellent and not easily replaceable by 'community health centers.' Texas tried it, and thousands of women went without care.
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