Gloria Steinem Quotes

No government should dictate whether or when we should have children….Reproductive freedom is a basic human right.

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

Reproductive choice is a fundamental human right and we can never take it for granted. On this issue, you're either with us or against us.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights describes the family as the natural and fundamental unit of society. It follows that any choice and decision with regard to the size of the family must irrevocably rest with the family itself, and cannot be made by anyone else.

There is nothing more fundamental than the idea that the government does not have a right to decide when and whether we have children.

We never use the phrase population control. It has an implication of coercion.

Is it a recent occurrence that women have tried to control when and if they reproduced? Absolutely not. By 2000 B.C., there was worldwide use of herbal potions to prevent pregnancy. Condoms were made from animal bladders.

Frankly, I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of.

Margaret Sanger didn't just introduce the idea of birth control into our culture at large, she freed women from indenture to their bodies.

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

The public likes to think that women only care about contraception.

Licences to have babies incidentally is something that I got in trouble for some years ago for suggesting even in Canada that this might be necessary at some point, at least some restriction on the right to have a child.

The so-called right to reproduce is not an unlimited right.

It is the patriotic duty of women to bear four children.

The Constitution protects individual decisions in matters of childbearing from unjustified intrusion by the state ….The right to privacy in connection with decisions affecting procreation extends to minors as well as adults.

Choice is a uniquely female issue. We don't share the same reproductive systems.

We recognized ‘the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child.’ That right necessarily includes the right of a woman to decide whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.

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.

The question of regulating birth rates is highly complex and that any standardized, dogmatic solution "for all time and all peoples" would be wrong.

In America, access to birth control is controlled by those who never use it.

A woman’s ability to decide whether and when to have a child is not a social issue—it is a human right. It is the biggest indicator of whether she is educated or not, can work outside the home or not, is healthy or not, and how long she lives.

Woman must have her freedom; the fundamental freedom of choosing whether or not she shall be a mother and how many children she will have. Regardless of what man's attitude may be, that problem is hers; and before it can be his, it is hers alone.

Why don’t more doe-hard abortion opponents fret over embryos discarded during the course of IVF [in vitro fertilization]? The reason is that destroying an embryo in pursuit of a baby is part of a noble struggle, whereas destroying an embryo to finish high school or law school or even to put enough food on the table for other kids is considered selfish at best.

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.

I am a big pro-choice guy.