There’s only one pretty child in the world, and every mother has it.
—Common Proverb
If men were equally at risk from this condition – if they knew their bellies might swell as if they were suffering from end-stage cirrhosis, that they would have to go nearly a year without a stiff drink, a cigarette, or even an aspirin, that they would be subject to fainting spells and unable to fight their way onto commuter trains – then I am sure that pregnancy would be classified as a sexually transmitted disease and abortions would be no more controversial than emergency appendectomies
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b.1941) American Social Critic, Essayist
A grand adventure is about to begin
—A. A. Milne (1882–1956) British Humorist, Playwright, Children’s Writer
If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.
—Florynce Kennedy (1916–2000) American Lawyer, Civil Rights Leader, Feminist, Activist
Over the last decade or so ‘wars’ have been proclaimed, in turn, on teen pregnancy, dropping out, drugs, and most recently violence. The trouble with such campaigns, though, is that they come too late, after the targeted problem has reached epidemic proportions and taken firm root in the lives of the young. They are crisis intervention, the equivalent of solving a problem by sending an ambulance to the rescue rather than giving an inoculation that would ward off the disease in the first place. Instead of more such ‘wars,’ what we need is to follow the logic of prevention, offering our children the skills for facing life that will increase their chances of avoiding any and all of these fates
—Daniel Goleman (b.1946) American Psychologist, Author, Science Journalist
If men were equally at risk from this condition — if they knew their bellies might swell as if they were suffering from end-stage cirrhosis, that they would have to go nearly a year without a stiff drink, a cigarette, or even an aspirin, that they would be subject to fainting spells and unable to fight their way onto commuter trains — then I am sure that pregnancy would be classified as a sexually transmitted disease and abortions would be no more controversial than emergency appendectomies.
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b.1941) American Social Critic, Essayist
Being pregnant is an occupational hazard of being a wife.
—Queen Victoria (1819–1901) British Royal
Back in the days when men were hunters and chest beaters and women spent their whole lives worrying about pregnancy or dying in childbirth, they often had to be taken against their will. Men complained that women were cold, unresponsive, frigid. They wanted their women wanton. They wanted their women wild. Now women were finally learning to be wanton and wild — and what happened?. The men wilted.
—Erica Jong (b.1942) American Novelist, Feminist
Telegram to a friend who had just become a mother after a prolonged pregnancy: Good work, Mary. We all knew you had it in you
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American Humorist, Journalist
I positively think that ladies who are always enceinte quite disgusting; it is more like a rabbit or guinea-pig than anything else and really it is not very nice.
—Queen Victoria (1819–1901) British Royal
By far the most common craving of pregnant women is not to be pregnant.
—Phyllis Diller (b.1917) American Actor, Comedian
A woman has two smiles that an angel might envy — the smile that accepts a lover before words are uttered, and the smile that lights on the first-born babe, and assures it of a mother’s love.
—Thomas Chandler Haliburton (1796–1865) Canadian Author, Humorist, Businessperson, Judge