If it were up to me, I would not define myself by the absence of something; "theist" is a believer, so with "atheist" you’re defining yourself by the… - Gloria Steinem

Citizens who refuse to obey anything but their own conscience can transform countries, it is the basis of any real democracy.

Only women could bleed without injury or death; only they rose from the gore each month like a phoenix; only their bodies were in tune with the ululations of the universe and the timing of the tides. Without this innate lunar cycle, how could men have a sense of time, tides, space, seasons, movement of the universe, or the ability to measure anything at all? How could men mistress the skills of measurement necessary for mathematics, engineering, architecture, surveying — and so many other professions? In Christian churches, how could males, lacking monthly evidence of Her death and resurrection, serve the Daughter of the Goddess? In Judaism, how could they honor the Matriarch without the symbol of Her sacrifices recorded in the Old Ovariment? Thus insensible to the movements of the planets and the turning of the universe, how could men become astronomers, naturalists, scientists — or much of anything at all?

Suddenly, I began to wonder: If one in three or four American women had an abortion at some time in her life — a common statistical estimate, even in those days of illegality — then why, WHY should this single surgical procedure be deemed a criminal act?