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Argument: Opposition to abortion is based largely on sexism toward women

Issue Report: Abortion

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Planned Parenthood advertisement – “Seventy-seven percent of anti-abortion leaders are men. 100% of them will never be pregnant.”[1]

Laurence Tribe, in Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes (1990) – “Whether in the name of traditional sex roles or in the name of a traditional sexual morality, much opposition to abortion seems really to be about the control of women.”[2]

Susan B. Anthony, women’s suffrage movement leader, The Revolution.(August 8, 1869). – “All the articles on this subject that I have read have been from men. They denounce women as alone guilty, and never include man in any plans for the remedy. . . Guilty? Yes. No matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed [abortion]. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; But oh, thrice guilty is he who drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime!”[3]

Ursula K. Le Guin, Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places (1997) – “The preservation of life seems to be rather a slogan than a genuine goal of the anti-abortion forces: what they want is control. Control over behavior: power over women. Women in the anti-choice movement want to share in male power over women, and do so by denying their own womanhood, their own rights and responsibilities.”