Reproductive Quotes

[...] proficiency in inferring the large-scale and small-scale structure of our immediate environment, or any features of parts of the universe distant from our ancestral stomping grounds, was of no relevance to our ancestors' reproductive fitness. Hence, there is no reason to imagine that our habitual intuitions and inferential responses are well designed for science or for metaphysics. ~ James Ladyman

Many amateurs believe that plants and animals reproduce on a one-way route toward perfection. Translating the idea in social terms, they believe that companies and organizations are, thanks to competition (and the discipline of the quarterly report), irreversibly heading toward betterment. The strongest will survive; the weakest will become extinct. As to investors and traders, they believe that by letting them compete, the best will prosper and the worst will go learn a new craft (like pumping gas or, sometimes, dentistry). Things are not as simple as that. We will ignore the basic misuse of Darwinian ideas in the fact that organizations do not reproduce like living members of nature - Darwinian ideas are about reproductive fitness, not about survival. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The bill would ban human cloning, and any attempts at human cloning, for both reproductive purposes and medical research. Also forbidden is the importing of cloned embryos or products made from them. ~ Ken Calvert

Ironically, as some people become harder, they use softer words to describe dark deeds. This, too, is part of being sedated by secularism. Needless abortion, for instance, is a "reproductive health procedure, ... " "Illegitimacy" gives way to the wholly sanitized words "non-marital birth" or "alternative parenting." ~ Neal A. Maxwell

One of the basic steps in saving a threatened species is to learn more about it: its diet, its mating and reproductive processes, its range patterns, its social behavior. ~ Dian Fossey

We may abandon a holistic, metaphysical ideal of natural law reconciled with cultural configurations; but we cannot abandon a vision of a humanity freed from such pathologies without simultaneously siding with the worst kind of system-reproductive education. ~ Mark Murphy

A woman, as much as a man, is responsible by the age of forty for the character of her face. But women, obeying the biological imperative, strive harder to preserve a youthful appearance (the reproductive look) and lose it sooner. ~ Edward Abbey

Activism" is not just what we see on the streets or on the Internet or in the news; sometimes, "activism" is the simple act of doggedly, determinedly surviving. ~ Barbara Gurr

Hindus and Westerners alike see in the meat-eating taboos of India a triumph of morals over appetite. This is a dangerous misrepresentation of cultural processes. Hindu vegetarianism was a victory not of spirit over matter but of reproductive over productive forces. ~ Marvin Harris

the intolerance of reproductive rights for women puts the rights of potential humans above the rights of actual living, breathing humans. ~ Cooper S. Beckett

Folks who believe that abortion is permissible in the case of rape, but not permissible in the case of accidental pregnancy from consensual sex, are not actually condemning abortion; rather the moral axis here is the sexual behavior----the blameworthiness----of the pregnant person. ~ June Eric-Udorie

In 1995, world military spending totaled nearly $800 billion. If we redirected just $40 billion of those resources over the next 10 years to fighting poverty, all of the world's population would enjoy basic social services, such as education, health care, nutrition, reproductive health, clean water and sanitation. ~ Oscar Arias

When we breathe it in, soot can interfere with our lungs and increase the risk of asthma attacks, lung cancer and even premature death. The smallest particles can pass into the blood stream and cause heart disease, stroke and reproductive complications. ~ Sheldon Whitehouse

Few chemicals confer maleness, but many take it away. Which, if any, are responsible for our own troubles is hard to say.

The Pill changed men's lives in more ways than one. It caused reproductive hormones to leak into tap water and has been blamed both for the sex changes in freshwater fish and for the drop in our own sperm count. The jury is still out on the issue, but other hormones have had a disastrous effect. A drug called diethylstilbestrol was once thought - in error - to prevent miscarriage. Five million mothers took it and for a time it was even used as a chicken food supplement. A third of the boys exposed to the drug in the womb suffer from small testes or a reduced penis. In rats, the chemical causes prostate and testicular cancer (although there is as yet no sign of those problems in ourselves).
To give a powerful steroid to pregnant women was at best unwise, but the effects of other chemicals were harder to foresee. The 1950s saw a wonderful new chemical treatment for banana pests. Soon the substance was much used. Twenty years later the workers noticed something odd: they had almost no children. Their sperm count had dropped by five hundred times. ~ Steve Jones

Evolution acts slowly. Our psychological characteristics today are those that promoted reproductive success in the ancestral environment. ~ Keith Henson

Stories are the reproductive organs of language. ~ Robert Bringhurst

Humans are the reproductive organs of technology. ~ Kevin Kelly

If you have fathered a child, if you have given birth, if sex is a source of healthy pleasure, thank your pelvis and your reproductive organs for allowing you to feel the creative rhythms of life. ~ Elizabeth Lesser

Twenty years later, twenty years after I joined the women's movement, we're still talking about the same issues. We're still talking about reproductive rights for women, and we're still talking about getting equal pay for women. And that's just frustrating. ~ Corin Tucker

Within a few months Mitch Bush, head veterinarian at the National Zoo, and David Wildt, a young reproductive physiologist working as a postdoctoral fellow in my laboratory at the National Cancer Institute, were on a plane bound for South Africa. Bush is a towering, bearded, giant of a man with a strong interest and acumen in exotic animal veterinary medicine, particularly the rapidly improving field of anesthetic pharmacology. Wildt is a slight and modest Midwestern farm boy, schooled in the reproductive physiology of barnyard animals. His boyish charm and polite shy demeanor mask a piercing curiosity and deep knowledge of all things reproductive. Bush and Wildt's expedition to the DeWildt cheetah breeding center outside Pretoria would ultimately change the way the conservation community viewed cheetahs forever. ~ Stephen J. O'Brien

For every fresh stage in our lives we need a fresh education, and there is no stage for which so little educational preparation is made as that which follows the reproductive period. ~ Havelock Ellis

We are not defined as much by our reproductive organs, as we are by how we feel about them. ~ Michael Makai

We shall have to stop looking askance on trends in relation to sex merely as a reproductive capability, i.e. that it is normal to make babies. Society will have to change in its assessment of what the proclivities of humanity may be. Our viewpoints on homosexuality, for example, may have to be reconsidered and more wisely adjusted. ~ R. Buckminster Fuller

In the last 200 years the population of our planet has grown exponentially, at a rate of 1.9% per year. If it continued at this rate, with the population doubling every 40 years, by 2600 we would all be standing literally shoulder to shoulder. ~ Stephen Hawking

Women really must have equal pay for equal work, equality in work at home, and reproductive choices. Men must press for these things also. They must cease to see them as "women's issues" and learn that they are everyone's issues - essential to survival on planet Earth. ~ Erica Jong

Whenever a controversy arises over sexual or reproductive morals, you can bet that religious leaders from several different faith groups will be prominently represented on influential committees, or on panel discussions on radio or television. ~ Richard Dawkins

I wait. I don't know how long it will take his reproductive organs to decide life is worth living again, but I'm stuck here until they do. ~ Jessica Martinez

If you look at all the variables in nature that are said
to determine human "sex," you can't possibly find one that will unequivocally split the species into two. Each of the so-called criteria of sexedness is itself a continuum - including chromosomal variables, genital and gonadal variations,
reproductive capacities, endocrinological proportions, and any other criterion you could think of. Any or all of these different variables may line up in any number of ways, and all of the variables may vary independently of one another. ~ John Stoltenberg

In other countries, success has been achieved with embryo transfer in a different rhino species, thus that as a technique can be presupposed to be the most promising, However, consultations are ongoing amongst different reproductive technique experts on the way forward. ~ Paul George

Only two things matter in the reproductive health debate: the medical opinions of doctors, and the will of women. Also, feminism is intricately connected with all aspects of our society, including health, but also labor and the economy. A woman can't be an equal player in our society until she has total autonomy, and that includes determining the destiny of her own body. ~ Allison Kilkenny Jamie Kilstein

Here we are, women who have been the beneficiaries of education, resources, reproductive choices, travel opportunities, the Internet, and a longer life expectancy than women have ever had in history.
What can and will we do? ~ Jean Shinoda Bolen

Under reverent, patient care, the wild seed gradually relinquishes its protective husk and entrusts its reproductive life to human hands.(thus) this sacred law and covenant with Mother Earth; Respectful care brings abundance. If you take, you must give back-Return the gift. ~ Marilou Awiakta

From what has been said, it would appear that the possibility of thyroid deficiency should be considered, and if found, should be treated in any woman with a menstrual abnormality or a reproductive problem. It was generally agree that correction of thyroid deficiency solved many such abnormalities and problems - until about 1940. ~ Broda Otto Barnes

Every second, every day, every year, we fail to address demand for reproductive health and family planning services. Lives are lost, and girls' opportunities to thrive and contribute to their country's development shrink. These are real people. ~ Jenny Shipley

Readers acquainted with the recent literature on human sexuality will be familiar with what we call the standard narrative of human sexual evolution, hereafter shortened to the standard narrative. It goes something like this:

1. Boy Meets girl,

2. Boy and girl assess one and others mate value, from perspectives based upon their differing reproductive agendas/capacities. He looks for signs of youth, fertility, health, absence of previous sexual experience and likelihood of future sexual fidelity. In other words, his assessment is skewed toward finding a fertile, healthy young mate with many childbearing years ahead and no current children to drain his resources.

She looks for signs of wealth (or at least prospects of future wealth), social status, physical health and likelihood that he will stick around to protect and provide for their children. Her guy must be willing and able to provide materially for her (especially during pregnancy and breastfeeding) and their children, known as "male parental investment".

3. Boy gets girl. Assuming they meet one and others criteria, they mate, forming a long term pair bond, "the fundamental condition of the human species" as famed author Desmond Morris put it. Once the pair bond is formed, she will be sensitive to indications that he is considering leaving, vigilant towards signs of infidelity involving intimacy with other women that would threaten her access to his resources and protection w ~ Cacilda Jetha

In Connecticut, for example, a man confessed to having had sexual relations with a variety of animals since the age of ten; Massachusetts executed several teenage boys for buggery. Sexual relations with animals required harsh punishment, for colonists believed that these unions could have reproductive consequences. The mating of humans and animals, they feared, would produce monstrous offspring. For this reason, colonists insisted on punishing not only the man but also the beast, who might bear such monsters. ~ John D'Emilio

Social conservatives do have a pretty decent predictive track record, including in many cases where their fears were dismissed as wild and apocalyptic, their projections as sky-is-falling nonsense, their theories of how society and human nature works as evidence-free fantasies. . . . If you look at the post-1960s trend data - whether it's on family structure and social capital, fertility and marriage rates, patterns of sexual behavior and their links to flourishing relationships, or just trends in marital contentment and personal happiness more generally - the basic social conservative analysis has turned out to have more predictive power than my rigorously empirical liberal friends are inclined to admit. . . .
In the late 1960s and early '70s, the pro-choice side of the abortion debate frequently predicted that legal abortion would reduce single parenthood and make marriages more stable, while the pro-life side made the allegedly-counterintuitive claim that it would have roughly the opposite effect; overall, it's fair to say that post-Roe trends were considerably kinder to Roe's critics than to the "every child a wanted child" conceit. Conservatives (and not only conservatives) also made various "dystopian" predictions about eugenics and the commodification of human life as reproductive science advanced in the '70s, while many liberals argued that these fears were overblown; today, from "selective reduction" to the culling of Down's Syndrome fetuses to worldwide tr ~ Ross Douthat

The women's liberation movement of today in America, in its most oceanic sense, is a wish by women to be liked for something other than their reproductive abilities, especially since the planet is harrowingly overpopulated. And the rejection of the Equal Rights Amendment by male state legislators is this clear statement by men, in my opinion: "We're sorry, girls, but your reproductive abilities are about all we can really like you for."

The truth. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

At the constitutional level, what we of course have assured is that women have the ability to make these reproductive decisions up to the point of viability. ~ Barack Obama

Most televangelists, popular Christian preacher icons, and heads of those corporations that we call megachurches share an unreflective modern view of Jesus--that he translates easily and almost automatically into a modern idiom. The fact is, however, that Jesus was not a person of the twenty-first century who spoke the language of contemporary Christian America (or England or Germany or anywhere else). Jesus was inescapably and ineluctably a Jew living in first-century Palestine. He was not like us, and if we make him like us we transform the historical Jesus into a creature that we have invented for ourselves and for our own purposes.

Jesus would not recognize himself in the preaching of most of his followers today. He knew nothing of our world. He was not a capitalist. He did not believe in free enterprise. He did not support the acquisition of wealth or the good things in life. He did not believe in massive education. He had never heard of democracy. He had nothing to do with going to church on Sunday. He knew nothing of social security, food stamps, welfare, American exceptionalism, unemployment numbers, or immigration. He had no views on tax reform, health care (apart from wanting to heal leprosy), or the welfare state. So far as we know, he expressed no opinion on the ethical issues that plague us today: abortion and reproductive rights, gay marriage, euthanasia, or bombing Iraq. His world was not ours, his concerns were not ours, and--most striking of all-- ~ Bart D. Ehrman

In my opinion, the battles over birth control and Planned Parenthood are primarily neither political nor religious. This is an issue of equality for women. This is an issue of women's rights: Planned Parenthood is the most important private provider of reproductive health care for women in the United States. ~ Karen DeCrow

Probably those three things affect the most people: reproductive freedom, freedom from violence, and democratic families. But there may well be someone sitting at this table who has a great idea to do something else that wouldn't come under those umbrellas and that would really be great, and make all kinds of change. ~ Gloria Steinem

Since the family is the irreducible core unit of cities or any other political order, one may say the same thing of marriage: it was established to render justice, to give each his due - in this case, what is due between husband and wife in the inimitably unique relationship that they form. Owing to the exceptional complementarity and procreative potential of a husband and a wife, the legal form for their relationship is likewise distinctive, and not replicable for other relationships that are neither complementary nor potentially reproductive. ~ Robert R. Reilly

Biological age, I think because I've been taking care of myself for so long I know not just my reproductive organs but my heart, you know, are much younger than - than what I am. ~ Cheryl Tiegs

Employers should not be able to impose their religious beliefs on female employees, ignoring their individual health decisions and denying their right to reproductive care. Bosses belong in the boardroom, not in the bedroom. ~ Dina Titus

In the car inching its way down Fifth Avenue, toward Bergdorf Goodman and this glamorous party, I looked back on my past with a new understanding. This sickness, the "endo-whatever," had stained so much - my sense of self, my womanhood, my marriage, my ability to be present. I had effectively missed one week of each month every year of my life since I was thirteen, because of the chronic pain and hormonal fluctuations I suffered during my period. I had lain in bed, with heating pads and hot-water bottles, using acupuncture, drinking teas, taking various pain medications and suffering the collateral effects of them. I thought of all the many tests I missed in various classes throughout my education, the school dances, the jobs I knew I couldn't take as a model, because of the bleeding and bloating as well as the pain (especially the bathing suit and lingerie shoots, which paid the most). How many family occasions was I absent from? How many second or third dates did I not go on? How many times had I not been able to be there for others or for myself? How many of my reactions to stress or emotional strife had been colored through the lens of chronic pain? My sense of self was defined by this handicap. The impediment of expected pain would shackle my days and any plans I made.

I did not see my own womanhood as something positive or to be celebrated, but as a curse that I had to constantly make room for and muddle through. Like the scar on my arm, my reproductive syst ~ Padma Lakshmi

The right to choose to abort a fetus is critical, as is the ability to effect that choice in real life, so it's great that Hillary Clinton wants to repeal the Hyde Amendment. But without welfare, single-payer health care, a minimum wage of at least $15--all policies she staunchly opposes--many people have to forgo babies they'd really love to have. That's not really a choice.

It seems ill-conceived to have tethered feminism to such a narrow issue as abortion. Yet it makes sense from an insular Beltway fundraising perspective to focus on an issue that makes no demands--the opposite, really--of the oligarch class; this is probably a big reason why EMILY'S List has never dabbled in backing universal pre-K or paid maternity leave; a major reason 'reproductive choice' has such a narrow and negative definition in the American political discourse.

The thing is, an abortion is by definition a story you want to forget, not repeat and relive. And for the same reason abortion pills will never be the blockbuster moneymakers heartburn medications are, abortion is a consummately foolish thing to attempt to build a political movement around. It happens once or twice in a woman's lifetime.

Kids, on the other hand, are with you forever. A more promising movement--one that goes against everything Hillary Clinton stands for--might take that to heart. ~ Liza Featherstone

Beside Mama, in my own folding chair, with my feet sticking out in front of me, I thought about my own innards. Just a few months before I'd had no idea whether my reproductive equipment worked. There was no evidence. But that week I had become a full-fledged bleeder and was still absorbed by this first change in myself that I had ever noticed. The click and buzz of my synapses kept making the same connection. If you can change, you can also end. Death had always been a theory to me. Now I knew. The terror hurt good and I nursed it and played it like a loose tooth. ~ Katherine Dunn

I don't know what these Republican congressmen drink that make them experts on women's reproductive health. ~ Jackie Speier

Most of the psychological differences between men and women seem to come from differences in their reproductive system ~ Haruki Murakami

Many of us know more about the workings of our car than we do the reproductive cycle. ~ Jeannine Parvati Baker

Sexual conflict occurs when one mating partner has an opportunity to increase its fitness at a cost to the other partner. On a genetic level, most sexual conflicts are interlocus conflicts that mainly concern the outcome of male-female interactions about the mating rate, fertility efficiency, relative parental effort, remating behavior, and female reproductive rate. In sexually antagonistic evolution, a trait that affords advantage to one sex is disadvantageous to the other. An example is the sexual arms race that evolves when resistance in one sex drives the evolution of coercive traits in the other sex. Without the restrictions of natural selection, this process may lead to a runaway amplification of male and female traits. The coevolutionary arms races between adaptations in one sex and counteradaptations in the other sex can be made visible by experimentally arresting evolution in one sex. ~ Todd K. Shackelford And Aaron T. Goetz

Reproductive freedom is critical to a whole range of issues. If we can't take charge of this most personal aspect of our lives, we can't take care of anything. It should not be seen as a privilege or as a benefit, but a fundamental human right. ~ Faye Wattleton

Your brother?" St. Clair points above my bed to the only picture I've hung up. Seany is grinning at the camera and pointing at one of my mother's research turtles,which is lifting its neck and threatening to take away his finger. Mom is doing a study on the lifetime reproductive habits of snapping turtles and visits her brood in the Chattahoochie River several times a month. My brother loves to go with her, while I prefer the safety of our home. Snapping turtles are mean.
"Yep.That's Sean."
"That's a little Irish for a family with tartan bedspreads."
I smile. "It's kind of a sore spot. My mom loved the name,but Granddad-my father's father-practically died when he heard it.He was rooting for Malcolm or Ewan or Dougal instead."
St. Clair laughs. "How old is he?"
"Seven.He's in the second grade."
"That's a big age difference."
"Well,he was either an accident or a last-ditch effort to save a failing marriage.I've never had the nerve to ask which. ~ Stephanie Perkins

That was some powerful shit. Like mind and pussy-numbing, fuckilepsy inducing, reproductive organ-exploding powerful. You really are some kind of flogger wielding sex God. ~ Ella Dominguez

It is time to renew the battle for reproductive rights. We have been outmaneuvered, outspent, outpostured, and outvoted by a group of single-issue activists. It has taken them nearly two decades to turn back the principles of Roe. Let's make sure it takes us a shorter time to replace protection for reproductive choice. ~ Sarah Weddington

If only the court had acted more slowly,' RBG said, and cut down one state law at a time the way she had gotten them to do with the jury and benefit cases. The justices could have been persuaded to build an architecture of women's equality that could house reproductive freedom. She said the very boldness of Roe, striking down all abortion bans until viability, had 'halted a political process that was moving in a reform direction and thereby, I believe, prolonged divisiveness and deferred stable settlement of the issue. (85). ~ Irin Carmon

The solutions put forth by imperialism are the quintessence of simplicity ... When they speak of the problems of population and birth, they are in no way moved by concepts related to the interests of the family or of society ... Just when science and technology are making incredible advances in all fields, they resort to technology to suppress revolutions and ask the help of science to prevent population growth. In short, the peoples are not to make revolutions, and women are not to give birth. This sums up the philosophy of imperialism. ~ Fidel Castro

Would give any woman who believes in reproductive rights and freedom any comfort. ~ Nan Aron

I got my tubes tied last fall, at age 45 ... After 33 years or so, I struggled to gain control of my reproductive potential and its power over my destiny. Finally, instead of letting nature continue to screw around with me, at least in this one area I engineered a pre-emptive strike. ~ Marion Winik

When a trait is universal, evolutionary biologists look for a genetic explanation and wonder how that gene or genes might enhance survival or reproductive success. ~ Robin Marantz Henig

We had been playing our assigned roles on the office stage, but stepping down from the stage, abandoning the images that we had been projecting there, we were both just unstable, awkward lumps of flesh, warm pieces of meat kitted out with digestive tracts and hearts and brains and reproductive organs. ~ Haruki Murakami

We respect women and don't insult them by saying all they care about is reproductive rights. All issues are women's issues. ~ Carly Fiorina

Oppression as a causal explanation is deficient and inadequate in almost every respect, since, among other things, it simply does not fit the data curve. "These oppression theories," says Chafetz, "are based on vaguely defined concepts often ill suited to operationalization, such as 'patriarchy,' 'female subordination,' and 'sexism.' The use of such emotion-laden but unclear terms, combined typically with a heavily normative approach to the topic of sex inequality, results in a maximum of rhetoric but a minimum of clear insight." No, this polarization of the sexes - with males dominating the public/productive sphere and females dominating the private/reproductive, to the detriment of both - has virtually nothing to do with male oppression and female sheepdom/subjugation. It has everything to do with life in the biosphere. ~ Ken Wilber

I find no reason to think that aging is genetically determined. Genes do not provide information for the development of the individual beyond growth and the reproductive process in which the genes are transmitted to the next generation. Once past the reproductive stage, the individual has served the purposes of preservation of the species, and then he is on his own. The wrinkled human face is the victim of gravity and of cumulative errors in the reproduction of cells. Since aging is not programed, but is a badly improvised interference with youthful beauty, we have improvised an operation to counteract its effects. Aging is a form of misinformation. If we get the facts right, you will be able to read it in our faces. ("Motherhood") ~ William S. Wilson

No, I'm the human here. I'm the life at stake. I'm the one with fingernails, who feels pain.

Me. ~ Alicen Grey

I have consistently supported laws ensuring women are able to make their own health care decisions, and I will continue to protect women's access to contraceptives and reproductive health care. ~ Dan Maffei

We have to take away from humans in the long run their reproductive autonomy as the only way to guarantee the advancement of mankind. ~ Francis Crick

Women, justifiably, feel vulnerable at a time so many years after their journey for reproductive freedom started. ~ Sarah Weddington

Reproductive freedom is not just the ability not to have a child through birth control. It's the ability to have one if and when you want. ~ Pamela Madsen

Women's bodies are so often under the purview of men, whether it's our reproductive organs, our sexuality, our weight, our manner of dress. There is a freedom found in decomposition, a body rendered messy, chaotic, and wild. I relish this image when visualizing what will become of my future corpse. ~ Caitlin Doughty

Our main reproductive organ is our brain. ~ Molly Kelly

Evolution, or its driving engine natural selection, has no foresight. In every generation within every species, the individuals best equipped to survive and reproduce contribute more than their fair share of genes to the next generation. The consequence, blind as it is, is the nearest approach to foresight that nature permits. [...] It is always tinkering: here shrinking a bit, there expanding a bit, constantly adjusting, putting on and taking off, optimising immediate reproductive success. Survival in future centuries doesn't enter into the calculation, for the good reason that it isn't really a calculation at all. It all happens automatically, as some genes survive in the gene pool and others don't. ~ Richard Dawkins

We believe the Senate language provides for federal subsidies for abortions. Plus there's a language in there where you have to pay one dollar per month, every enrollee, to pay for a fund for reproductive rights which include abortion. And that's totally against federal law. So we are saying take that out. ~ Bart Stupak

The systematic dismantling of reproductive rights, much like the takedown of collective bargaining, has been taking place in full view. ~ Garry Trudeau

It's long been accepted as fact that the availability of family planning services saves lives. Where women have access to these services, children and families are healthier, and society at large benefits. ~ Martha Plimpton

If some individuals contribute to general social deterioration by overproducing children, and if the need is compelling, they can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility - just as they can be required to exercise responsibility in their resource-consumption patterns - providing they are not denied equal protection ~ John Holdren

Many of us were the unplanned children of talented, creative women whose lives had been changed by unplanned and unwanted pregnancies. We witnessed their bitterness, their rage, their disappointment with their lot in life and we were clear that there could be no genuine sexual liberation for women and men without better, safer contraceptives, without the right to a safe, legal abortion. ~ Bell Hooks

At the end of the two years that I was the director [of the Center for Reproductive and Sexual Health in Manhattan], we had done 60,000 abortions. [During my life] I myself, with my own hands, have done 5,000 abortions. I have supervised another 10,000 that residents have done under my direction. So I have 75,000 abortions in my life. Those are pretty good credentials to speak on the subject of abortion. ~ Bernard Nathanson

I have personally been affected by women's reproductive health issues, and I will continue to support that cause and spread awareness about it. ~ Bethany Cosentino

Iran's experience shows that when religious scholars and UNFPA work together to solve reproductive health issues, there can be excellent results. ~ Hossein Malek-Afzali

That was the idiot hopefulness of humans, always to love what was unformed. Really it made no sense. What were the old hoping the young would become? Something other than old? It hadn't happened yet, but the old kept trying.

By the old she meant everyone who loved something younger . . . Everyone was always reaching back through the past, past their own mistakes. You could say that young people were desired because they had smooth bodies and excellent reproductive chances, but you'd mostly be missing the point. There was something much sadder in it than that. Something like constant regret, the sense that your whole life was an error, a mistake, that you were desperate for a redo. ~ Chad Harbach

If men bore children, there would only be one born in each family. ~ Mark Twain

Another of Mack's patients says that the aliens have been taking eggs from her since she was sexually mature, and that her reproductive system baffles her gynecologist. Is it baffling enough to write the case up and submit a research paper to The New England Journal of Medicine? Apparently it's not that baffling. ~ Carl Sagan

The purpose of the word "slut" is: controlling women through shame and humiliation. Women's bodies are always the ones that are being vied over for control - whether it's rape, reproductive rights, or violence against women, it's our bodies that are the battleground, not men's. ~ Jessica Valenti

You're not really mad that I'm not having children.

In fact, I would probably love to one day.

You're mad that I'm expressing autonomy of choice.

You're mad that I'm considering other options.

You're mad that I don't view that as my ultimate potential.

You're mad that I dare be selfish enough to make choices based on my best interest, something women are not supposed to do.

You're mad that I consider it a choice, and that I, a woman, am exercising choice.

You're not mad that I'm not having babies.

You're mad because I'm acting like a man. ~ Alice Minium

My father despises cats. He believes them to be Democrats. He considers them to be little mean hillary clintons covered all over with feminist legfur. Cats would have abortions, if given half a chance. Cats would have abortions for fun. Consequently our own soft sinner, a soulful snowshoe named Alice, will stay shut in the bedroom upstairs, padding back and forth on cashmere paws, campaigning for equal pay, educating me about my reproductive system, and generally plotting the downfall of all men. ~ Patricia Lockwood

Pregnancy and childbirth are not only physical and medical experiences, after all. They are also social experiences that, in modern America, just as when abortion was criminalized in the 1870s, serve to restrict women's ability to participate in society on equal footing with men. ~ Katha Pollitt

used today are wreaking havoc on all of us, particularly on young children whose brains, immune systems, reproductive systems, and lungs are growing rapidly. "We have abundant ~ Alan Bell

The decline in American pride, patriotism, and piety can be directly
attributed to the extensive reading of so-called 'science fiction' by our
young people. This poisonous rot about creatures not of God's making,
societies of 'aliens' without a good Christian among them, and raw sex
between unhuman beings with three heads and God alone knows what sort of
reproductive apparatus keeps our young people from realizing the true will
of God. ~ Jerry Falwell

Was this what the human reproductive urge was like, a pointless and powerful desire to replicate wonderful, irreplaceable me, even when the me in question was a monster who truly had no right to live among humans? That would certainly explain how a great many of the monumentally unpleasant cretins I encountered every day came to be. ~ Jeff Lindsay

It's not okay for a woman to be in control of her own body, her own reproductive system, much less of her life. There's opposition even to that. So passivity is rewarded as feminine. ~ Gloria Steinem

My bones are brittle, my heart weak and erratic, my esophagus and stomach riddled with ulcers, my reproductive system shot, my immune system useless ... I'm not going to have a happy ending. ~ Marya Hornbacher

Looking on the bright side, let us remind ourselves of what has happened in the wake of earlier demystifications. We find no diminution of wonder; on the contrary, we find deeper beauties and more dazzling visions of the complexity of the universe than the protectors of mystery ever conceived. The 'magic' of earlier visions was, for the most part, a cover-up for frank failures of imagination, a boring dodge enshrined in the concept of a deus ex machina. Fiery gods driving golden chariots across the skies are simpleminded comic-book fare compared to the ravishing strangeness of contemporary cosmology, and the recursive intricacies of the reproductive machinery of DNA make élan vital about as interesting as Superman's dread Kryptonite. When we understand consciousness - when there is no more mystery - consciousness will be different, but there will still be beauty, and more room than ever for awe. ~ Daniel C. Dennett

According to Project Drawdown, four of the most effective strategies for mitigating global warming are reducing food waste, educating girls, providing family planning and reproductive healthcare, and collectively shifting to a plant-rich diet. The benefits of these advancements extend far beyond the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, and their primary cost is our collective effort. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

After dinner, as we had so many times during our months and months together, Marlboro Man and I adjourned to his porch. It was dark--we'd eaten late--and despite my silent five-minute battle with the reality of my reproductive system, there was definitely something special about the night. I stood at the railing, breathing in the dewy night air and taking in all the sounds of the countryside that would one day be my home. The pumping of a distant oil well, the symphony of crickets, the occasional moo of a mama cow, the manic yipping of coyotes…the din of country life was as present and reassuring as the cacophony of car horns, traffic sounds, and sirens had been in L.A. I loved everything about it.
He appeared behind me; his strong arms wrapped around my waist. Oh, it was real, all right--he was real. As I touched his forearms and ran the palms of my hands from his elbows down to his wrists, I'd never been more sure of how very real he was. Here, grasping me in his arms, was the Adonis of all the romance-novel fantasies I clearly never realized I'd been having; they'd been playing themselves out in steamy detail under the surface of my consciousness, and I never even knew I'd been missing it. I closed my eyes and rested my head back on his chest, just as his impossibly soft lips and subtle whiskers rested on my neck. Romancewise, it was perfection--the night air was still--almost imperceptible. Physically, viscerally, it was almost more than I could stand. Six babies? Su ~ Ree Drummond

Reproductive choice has to be straightened out. There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore. That just seems to me so obvious. The states that changed their abortion laws before Roe are not going to change back. So we have a policy that only affects poor women, and it can never be otherwise. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

It's okay to talk about birth, okay - then menstruation. I first started my advocacy for women's health in the field of reproductive freedom, and the next stage would be bringing menopause out of the closet. ~ Cybill Shepherd

The world today has 6.8 billion people. That's heading up to about nine billion. Now if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care & reproductive health services, we could LOWER that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent. ~ Bill Gates

Gideon was quickly checking through her muscular structure and then weaving very gently into the complexities of her reproductive system. Suddenly Legna cried out again, her hands hitting his chest and grabbing fistfuls of his shirt, her entire body trembling from head to toe. This time Gideon gave the reaction his full attention. He looked into her wide eyes, the pupils dilating as he watched. Her mouth formed a soft, silent circle of surprise.
"What are you doing?" she asked, her breath falling short and quick.
"Nothing," he insisted, his expression reflecting his baffled thoughts. "Merely continuing the exam. What are you feeling?"
Legna couldn't put the sensation into words. Her entire body felt as if it were pooling liquid fire, like magma dripping through her, centering under the hand he had just splayed over her lower belly. So, being the empath she was, she described it in the only way she could with any efficiency and effectiveness. She sent the sensations to him, deeply, firmly, without preparation or permission, exactly the way she had received them.
In an instant, Gideon went from being in control of a neutral examination to an internal thermonuclear flashpoint of arousal that literally took his breath away. His hand flexed on her belly, crushing the silk of her dress within his fist.
"Legna!" he cried hoarsely. "What are you doing?"
She didn't even seem aware of him, her eyes sliding closed and her head falling back as she tried to g ~ Jacquelyn Frank