檳榔嶼

- The sexual exploitation of women's bodies had been a common occurrence in radical movements for social justice whether socialist, civil rights, etc.
- Before there could be any gender equity around the issue of free love (which usually meant having as much sex as one wanted with whomever one desired) women needed access to safe, effective contraceptives and abortions.
- 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.
  - 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.
- Women who were more conscientious about birth control were often regarded as sexually loose by men.
- We now know that both repeated abortions or prolonged use of birth control pills with high levels of estrogen are not risk-free. Ye women were willing to take risks to have sexual freedom - to have the right to choose.
- The abortion issue captured the attention of mass media because it really challenged the fundamentalist thinking of Christianity. It directly challenged the notion that a woman's reason for existence was to bear children.
- The long-range medical problems from cesareans and hysterectomies were not juicy subjects for mass media; they actually called attention to a capitalist patriarchal male-dominated medical system that controlled women's bodies and did with them anything they wanted to do.
- Sadly the anti-abortion platform has most viciously targeted state-funded, inexpensive, and, when need be, free abortions.
  - As a consequence women of all races who have class privilege continue to have access to safe abortion - continue to have the right to choose - while materially disadvantaged women suffer.
- Without the right to safe, inexpensive, and free abortions they lose all control over their bodies.
- The right of women to choose whether or not to have an abortion is only one aspect of reproductive freedom.
- Losing ground on the issue of legal, safe, inexpensive abortion means that women lose ground on all reproductive issues. The anti-choice movement is fundamentally anti-feminist.
  - Young females who have always had access to effective contraception have no firsthand experience of the powerlessness and vulnerability to exploitation that will always be the outcome if females do not have reproductive rights.
- Feminist focus on reproductive rights is needed to protect and sustain our freedom.