The Activists:

We had a celebratory meeting the next day … the champagne flowed – we were almost delirious. And everybody was ready to disband the networks that had been built. And I said, “No, you can’t do this. This isn’t the end. This is just the beginning. There will definitely be a counterattack.” (Lawrence Lader, NARAL, on post-Roe celebrations, Risen and Thomas 1998, 37)

There is a tension … A lot of those people – what we tend to think of as the purists – in essence think that people who would push a more incremental approach are sellouts. I understand that type of zeal, but there is a severe penalty you can end up paying. (Daniel McConchie, Americans United for Life, Davey 2006)

The Legislator:

I’m about 99% pro-choice. (Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) just before voting in support of a ban of partial-birth abortion procedures. (Stolberg 2003b)

The Legal Scholar:

It is perfectly consistent to insist that states have no power to impose on their citizens a particular view of how and why life is sacred, and yet also insist that states do have the power to encourage their citizens to treat the question of abortion seriously. “What is at stake is the women’s right to make the ultimate decision, not a right to be insulated from all others in doing so.” (Dworkin 1993, 153)