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Compulsory motherhood is not ennobling, although the friends of the foetus are at pains to point out that most women denied abortions end up loving their issue just the same. Whether they love them just the same as they would have if they had wanted them is of course unverifiable; most women are not so perverse and unjust as to punish their children for the crimes of society (their fathers), but the oppression of their circumstances is real notwithstanding. For the oppressors themselves to take credit for the women's magnanimity is sickeningly smug. The compelled mother loves her child as the caged bird sings. The song does not justify the cage nor the love the enforcement.

Germaine Greer#25

RightsAbortionCoercionMotherhoodOppression

About this quote

What does it mean?
Compulsory motherhood doesn't ennoble women; love under oppression doesn't justify the oppression.
In plain terms
Forced motherhood isn't noble; loving a child doesn't justify forced pregnancy.
What can you take from it?
Love under coercion doesn't validate the coercion.

Where it applies

  • reproductive rights
  • family planning
  • ethics

Putting it to work

  • Support reproductive choice
  • Challenge forced parenthood

Questions to consider

  • Does love justify circumstances?
  • What is true freedom?

Another view

Some argue the outcome (love) matters more than the process.

More from Germaine Greer

  1. Next time round Hitler will be a machine.

    Permalink to quote #24
  2. Consensus politics means that you cannot afford to give the many-headed beast, the public, anything to vote against, for voting against is what gargantuan pseu…

    Permalink to quote #26
  3. As Angelo discovered in Measure for Measure, nothing corrupts like virtue.

    Permalink to quote #23

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