Quaker Quotations


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Margaret Hope Bacon:

          "In 1969 the American Friends Service Committee published a book, Who Shall Live: Man's Control over Birth and Death, written by a committee of Quaker doctors and ethicists, including Henry Cadbury, arguing that abortion in the first trimester is acceptable, as well as that persons had the right to choose their own time of death. Later, with the rise of the women's movement, many Quaker women of liberal persuasion advocated a woman's right to choose, and participated in public marches and organizations taking this position. Some liberal Friends, male and female, objected, feeling that the concept of life as sacred, so essential to the peace movement, should not be compromised. But to the evangelical and biblically oriented Friends, the issue was absolute, and the actions of liberal Friends deeply distressing."

-- from historical update & notes, Friends for 350 Years by Howard H. Brinton (2002, Pendle Hill Publications), p. 279

Richard Foster:

           I must give witness "for life" as consistently and as unambiguously as possible.

          This witness needs to weave its way throughout all human experience, from the womb to the tomb. This means seeking ways to protect the unborn. This means standing against all forms of prejudice which would dehumanize people precious to God. This means working to eliminate poverty and other dehumanizing social conditions. This means witnessing for peace and reconciliation everywhere possible and laboring hard for genuine alternatives to war. This means seeking out creative alternatives to capital punishment. This means rejecting euthanasia and instead working for a more compassionate end of life environment.

-- from "Growing Edges", an article on civic responsibility in  Renovaré's  Newsletter for October 2004 - www.renovare.org/documents/perspective_14_3.pdf