Her Body, Our Laws Quotes

“We pay a moral price for dehumanizing other human beings. Contempt and distrust corrode our ability to connect. They prevent us from recognizing ourselves in one another. They keep us apart.”
― Michelle Oberman, Her Body, Our Laws: On the Front Lines of the Abortion War, from El Salvador to Oklahoma

“If history is any indication of what to expect should abortion become illegal, we will need to append an asterisk to the promise that women won't be punished for abortion. The truth is, wealthy women won't be punished.”
― Michelle Oberman, Her Body, Our Laws: On the Front Lines of the Abortion War, from El Salvador to Oklahoma

“Life typically is more complicated than a morality play, after all.”
― Michelle Oberman, Her Body, Our Laws: On the Front Lines of the Abortion War, from El Salvador to Oklahoma

“As a result, it is fair to say that the most significant barrier to abortion, in a world without Roe v. Wade, will be wealth: how much will an abortion cost and how far must one travel in order to get one?”
― Michelle Oberman, Her Body, Our Laws: On the Front Lines of the Abortion War, from El Salvador to Oklahoma

“In the end, abortion laws aim to nudge women away from abortion by raising the costs of getting one. And the women most likely to be nudged away from abortion because of the costs are those who are poor. Ironically, and to my mind most cruelly, these are the same women who were nudged toward abortion because of the high costs of motherhood.
Our policies on both ends of the scale leave poor mothers so constrained by their options that it is hard, in good faith, to see either motherhood or abortion as a "choice.”
― Michelle Oberman, Her Body, Our Laws: On the Front Lines of the Abortion War, from El Salvador to Oklahoma

“Abortion is not the result of a simple yes/no calculus. Rather, it's the product of weighing competing costs. On one side of the scale are the costs of motherhood. On the other are the costs associated with abortion - costs that are largely determined by the legal regulations and restrictions on abortions.”
― Michelle Oberman, Her Body, Our Laws: On the Front Lines of the Abortion War, from El Salvador to Oklahoma

“Having a baby in the United States is expensive. And the government is comfortable with the high price point.”
― Michelle Oberman, Her Body, Our Laws: On the Front Lines of the Abortion War, from El Salvador to Oklahoma

“There are norms and policies that shape and constrain our options in life. The backdrop norms informing decisions about abortion consist of our policies regarding motherhood and parenting. We mostly regard these policies as neutral. But when we see their impact on the most vulnerable women, we understand how one's circumstances circumscribe the "choices" one actually has.”
― Michelle Oberman, Her Body, Our Laws: On the Front Lines of the Abortion War, from El Salvador to Oklahoma

“The largest research study into the question of why women choose abortion - it surveyed twelve hundred patients - found most women cite not one, but several reasons: 74 percent said having a child would interfere with education, work, or their ability to care for dependents; 73 percent said they could not afford a baby now.
The women are telling us something that is hiding in plain view: motherhood is really expensive. What's interesting about the costs of motherhood is that most of the costs actually could be reduced, if a government chose to do so. The price of being a mother is not foreordained. There is no "neutral" policy that dictates how much of the cost of mothering should fall on the individual mother. Instead, a country sets the price via a constellation of laws and policies: housing, day care, food, health care, education, and so on.”
― Michelle Oberman, Her Body, Our Laws: On the Front Lines of the Abortion War, from El Salvador to Oklahoma

“And if nothing else, the epic battle over abortion suggests that both sides share that belief: we take it for granted that changing abortion laws will change things in the lives of women facing unplanned pregnancies.”
― Michelle Oberman, Her Body, Our Laws: On the Front Lines of the Abortion War, from El Salvador to Oklahoma

“Their world is so unfamiliar that it becomes possible for doctors, and later prosecutors and judges, to project their own fears onto it, inventing motives for crimes in the process.”
― Michelle Oberman, Her Body, Our Laws: On the Front Lines of the Abortion War, from El Salvador to Oklahoma

“Each of the seventeen women was serving a sentence of between thirty to forty years. The majority were poor, uneducated, and young; over a quarter were illiterate and over half had not made it past third grade. All had experienced obstetrical complications at some point during their pregnancies, resulting in late miscarriages. They gave birth unattended. Their newborns were stillborn or died shortly after birth. The women bled so heavily that they sought care at a hospital, where they were arrested.”
― Michelle Oberman, Her Body, Our Laws: On the Front Lines of the Abortion War, from El Salvador to Oklahoma

“Still, I wondered how poor women lost their right to confidentiality simply because they couldn't afford to see a private doctor.”
― Michelle Oberman, Her Body, Our Laws: On the Front Lines of the Abortion War, from El Salvador to Oklahoma

“Herein lies the inevitable challenge for abortion law enforcement: in the absence of physical evidence such as trauma to the uterus, there is no reliable way to distinguish a woman experiencing complications from an illegal abortion from a woman who has suffered a miscarriage.
Because doctors cannot distinguish a spontaneous miscarriage from an abortion, the government will lack the evidence necessary to support a conviction against women who have early abortions.”
― Michelle Oberman, Her Body, Our Laws: On the Front Lines of the Abortion War, from El Salvador to Oklahoma

“The overwhelming majority of abortion cases in El Salvador begin in the hospital with a doctor's hunch that his or her patient has broken the law.”
― Michelle Oberman, Her Body, Our Laws: On the Front Lines of the Abortion War, from El Salvador to Oklahoma

“Abortion does not go away. Indeed, the rates of abortion in countries with the most restrictive abortion laws are higher.”
― Michelle Oberman, Her Body, Our Laws: On the Front Lines of the Abortion War, from El Salvador to Oklahoma

“Using the law to make moral declarations is not unusual. It's what legal theorists call the "expressive function" of the law. We use the law to tell us something about ourselves - who we are and what we value.
Think of laws against prostitution, flag-burning, or organ-selling. To the extent one supports these laws, it's often for reasons beyond or even aside from a belief that the law will prevent the crime from happening. Instead, we look to the law as a way of proclaiming moral boundaries. Supporters use the law to testify to a shared moral vision.”
― Michelle Oberman, Her Body, Our Laws: On the Front Lines of the Abortion War, from El Salvador to Oklahoma

“How odd to cast the fetus as an assailant against who deadly force is justified. Unlike conventional adversaries , the fetus doesn't do or intend anything toward its mother.”
― Michelle Oberman, Her Body, Our Laws: On the Front Lines of the Abortion War, from El Salvador to Oklahoma

“When I asked him why she needed to wait, Mayora responded that, at the time of her petition to the Supreme Court for an abortion, Beatriz's medical condition was stable. And at the same time, her fetus was alive, its heart was beating, and it was growing day by day. Unless and until the pregnancy posed an "imminent threat" to Beatriz's life, it was wrong to kill the fetus.
Later, when I described this part of my conversation to Dr. Jorge Ramirez, the chief assistant to the minister of health, he bristled: "Ask them if those survived the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers were never in danger. Because they survived? They say things that are indefensible.”
― Michelle Oberman, Her Body, Our Laws: On the Front Lines of the Abortion War, from El Salvador to Oklahoma

“So to my way of thinking, location matters: the fetus is alive and has a unique DNA, but until it is born, it is not a separate human being.”
― Michelle Oberman, Her Body, Our Laws: On the Front Lines of the Abortion War, from El Salvador to Oklahoma

“I want to live," she said quietly. "I beg from my heart that you let me.”
― Michelle Oberman, Her Body, Our Laws: On the Front Lines of the Abortion War, from El Salvador to Oklahoma

“It was as if they'd decided her case before it was even tried.”
― Michelle Oberman, Her Body, Our Laws: On the Front Lines of the Abortion War, from El Salvador to Oklahoma

“One of the most vivid examples of the impact of the ban on abortion is seen in the way it shapes how doctors treat high-risk pregnancies.”
― Michelle Oberman, Her Body, Our Laws: On the Front Lines of the Abortion War, from El Salvador to Oklahoma

“For those who opposed the abortion law, her case was the utmost example of the law's absurdity, and a perfect case with which to challenge the ban. For those who supported the ban, Beatriz's case tested the moral and legal integrity of their position that life begins at conception. Allowing Beatriz an abortion would have made that belief seem negotiable.”
― Michelle Oberman, Her Body, Our Laws: On the Front Lines of the Abortion War, from El Salvador to Oklahoma

“Because year after year, the war over abortion law consumes vast resources, not only in the United States but in countries worldwide. And year after year, that war does little to alter the concrete factors that shape whether a woman will consider having an abortion.”
― Michelle Oberman, Her Body, Our Laws: On the Front Lines of the Abortion War, from El Salvador to Oklahoma

“What is it about abortion that we think will be changed by way of abortion laws?”
― Michelle Oberman, Her Body, Our Laws: On the Front Lines of the Abortion War, from El Salvador to Oklahoma

“The battle lines over abortion are being drawn with laws. There is one war over abortion, and laws are the weapons with which it is fought.”
― Michelle Oberman, Her Body, Our Laws: On the Front Lines of the Abortion War, from El Salvador to Oklahoma

“What was the purpose of the law if it wasn't going to be enforced?”
― Michelle Oberman, Her Body, Our Laws: On the Front Lines of the Abortion War, from El Salvador to Oklahoma

“If abortion remained commonplace in spite of being illegal, I wondered how the abortion law was enforced. Who gets prosecuted for the crime of illegal abortion when tens of thousands of women have them every year?”
― Michelle Oberman, Her Body, Our Laws: On the Front Lines of the Abortion War, from El Salvador to Oklahoma

“How much, I wondered, did it matter if abortion was illegal?”
― Michelle Oberman, Her Body, Our Laws: On the Front Lines of the Abortion War, from El Salvador to Oklahoma