Joycelyn Elders Quotes

Abortion is part of being a mother and of caring for children, because part of caring for children is knowing when it is not a good idea to bring them into the world.

All anti-abortion protesters should be presented, on the spot, with an application to sign up as foster parents. They should also be given the names of children in their area in need of adoptive parents. And if they won't sign or volunteer, they should shut up.

Child support should do just that - support children, not the federal government.

We must not inflict life on children who will be resented; we must not inflict unwanted children on society.

We really need to get over this love affair with the fetus and start worrying about children.

We want better reasons for having children than not knowing how to prevent them.

Every child a wanted child, every mother a willing mother.

If the vice president thinks it’s disgraceful for an unmarried woman to bear a child, and if he believes that a woman cannot adequately raise a child without a father, then he’d better make sure that abortion remains safe and legal.

I think women have the right to consult their own wishes, needs, and capacities and produce only loved, wanted children they can care for - or even no children at all. I think we would all be better off as a society if we respected women's ability to make these decisions for themselves and concentrated on caring well for the born.

Bringing a child into the world makes sense only if this child is wanted consciously and freely by its two parents. If it is not, then it is simply animal and criminal behavior.

The first thing to improve society is not banning abortion, but making sure that everyone who had a child is in the best position to be able to rear it.

It goes without saying that you should never have more children than you have car windows.

If a woman makes a unilateral decision to bring pregnancy to term, and the biological father does not, and cannot, share in this decision, he should not be liable for 21 years of support... autonomous women making independent decisions about their lives should not expect men to finance their choice.

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.

Maybe the best way to get people to be pro-life is to start 'em off in amateur-life.

The first duty of a state is to see that every child born therein shall be well housed, clothed, fed and educated till it attains years of discretion.

I say Democrats should not be afraid to talk about the morality of life, of caring for children who are born. It seems the Republican obsession with being pro-life lasts about nine months. After that, it's each baby for herself.

People think that child-support enforcement benefits children, but it doesn't.

We must make children and families a national priority.

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.

If you bring a child into this world, whether it's planned or an accident, you'd better make sure you can care for it. You have to be around. You make time. It's as simple as that.

How many more [murders of abortion providers] is it going to take before we finally realize that legalized abortion in fact will destroy the United States of America? What do you expect people to do who literally understand that these people are making a living killing babies? Well, the evidence is at hand. There are people out there who will go and blow their brains out.

We must encourage those who earn less than $200 per month and cannot afford to nurture and educate many children never to have more than two... We will regret the time lost if we do not now take the first tentative steps towards correcting a trend which can leave our society with a large number of the physically, intellectually and culturally anemic.

No one should tell a woman she has to bear an unwanted child.

Reproductive freedom is a fundamental human right. We therefore oppose government interference in the reproductive decisions of Americans.