The Cider House Rules

by John Irving

Wells was familiar with the vision of that gibbet

I have stood aside to see the phantoms of those days go by me. They are gone, and I resume the journey of my story.

“These same people who tell us we must defend the lives of the unborn—they are the same people who seem not so interested in defending anyone

but themselves after the accident of birth is complete! These same people who profess their love of the unborn’s soul—they don’t care to make much of a contribution to the poor, they don’t care to offer much assistance to the unwanted or the oppressed! How do they justify such a concern for the fetus and such a lack of concern for unwanted and abused children? They condemn others for the accident of conception; they condemn the poor—as if the poor can help being poor. One way the poor could help themselves would be to be in control of the size of their families. I thought that freedom

of choice was obviously democratic—was obvi...

society that approved of making abortion illegal was a society that approved of violence against women; that making abortion illegal was simply a sanctimonious, self-righteous form of violence against women—it was just a way of legalizing violence against women,