Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I once heard an old African American woman, much wiser I think on this issue than anyone who has spoken in this Chamber today. She lived through the time when abortion was illegal in the United States. And she said that when a woman knows in her heart that it is right to have a child, she will risk her life to have that child; and when she knows in her heart that it is wrong for her to have that child, she will risk her life not to have that child. Women have sought abortions legally and illegally all over this world for as long as we can remember. They do so under the most desperate circumstances. In Bolivia, not too long ago, it was not only illegal to have an abortion, it was illegal to seek family planning services. And when they did a survey of their hospitals in Bolivia, they found that 50 percent of the beds were occupied by women suffering from botched illegal abortions. That is what this language does. The language that we move to strike promotes abortion in the name of limiting abortion. That is the twisted logic. It sacrifices the lives of young women, and it sacrifices the lives of little children on the altar of blind rigid dogma. It is the logic that says we must burn to purify. That logic has been wrong throughout history every time it has been applied. Millions have suffered from that blind brutal logic. That is the moral low ground. We stand on the moral high ground.”