Women

"What I learned is that passion is like a great thing. But it's great because it actually just allows you to do all the hard work that you actually need to do to become really great at what you do. Because it's not like passion is going to be what you need to then put into the actual work. But if you have that PASSION that it doesn't feel like you're putting in so much hard work, it's just more like you're just doing something that you love.Ire Aderinokun speaking on Passion."

"You just need to put yourself out there the worst case is you will get rejected but you will get a lot more opportunities that you would if you just never really put yourself out and it may not be an easy thing to do to step outside your comfort zone and really put yourself out there.Ire Aderinokun speaking on Rejection."

"I have a problem with not knowing things. But even more, I seem to have a problem with not being able to do everything. Essentially, I am a serial ‘jack-of-all-trades’.Ire on her inner drive to be good at everything"

"I find programming itself incredibly creative and fulfilling. Aderinokun Speaking on what she finds creative about her career."

"I guess there is a part of me that is always dissatisfied with my current knowledge and ability. This trait does have its good sides. It means that I am always up for learning something new, which is essential in the technology industry. But it also means that I may unfortunately always be a master of none.Ire speaking on her "ever ready to learn" mindset"

"Even though I feel like I did not really have a role model to look up to, what has been rewarding for me is being able to be that for other people. I have heard people that say they started doing this or that because they have seen me do it and I am glad I’m able to do that for other people when I did not really have that.Ire speaking about being a role model"

"“It is important to appreciate that there is value in listening to others’ opinions. Even if you may not agree, they bring the much-needed objectivity to your point of view.”"

"“I find something interesting in my country that Agricultural demonstrators from the Government go to the cattle post, the farms and rural areas to give the cows their bolus but we don't have health care workers who do such health outreaches to immunize babies.”"

"“Being a humanitarian or an active agent of change is not an activity you will one day outgrow, its also not a job that you can retire or resign from. It is part of who I am, My purpose”."

"“In Africa culture plays a significant role in molding our society because we have a deeply rooted cultural background. We need to to be able to eliminate the good and the bad from our cultural practices and see how we can encourage good practices such as breast feeding and see how we can talk against early child marriages and genitalia mutilation.”"

"“The two biggest challenges that i face all my life as a young leader has always been my age and gender. Coming from an exclusively patriarchal or masculine society rather l have always been perceived to be a bit of a wrong gender to achieve and reach certain milestones and a bit too young to dream, to be ambitious to be an active agent of change and a catalyst of development.”"

"“To the girl child i want to say you are amazing. The world is really unfair but it owes you absolutely nothing. Every rejection that is thrown at you, use it to build your own strength.” Gogontlejang Phaladi, Powerful women in Botswana , YouTube (25 February 2017). Retrieved 24 November 2021."

"“I value conversations with people who come from a different background from me. There is a lot of humility you learn through listening to others and allowing yourself to be guided by the wisdom of others. This also helped me a lot professionally, personally and socially”. Gogontlejang Phaladi, Gogontlejang Phaladi: Where there is passion, there is an undying spirit of persistence by Nonofo Nkwe."

"“Recommendations are there we already know what needs to be done. What we need is action, action and more action. We need to make sure relevant stakeholders are involved, young people need to be on the forefront.”"

"“Ladies and gentlemen let us understand that political will and commitment is just not in signing treaties and attending high level meetings.It is increasing National budget for the health sector. It is in having adolescent and gender responsive policies and programming.”"

"“Stand up and take action. Refuse to be silent."

"“If you don’t have a seat at the table, you will sit on the floor."

"“We cannot wait another 25 years. We need to push for accountability to make sufficient progress in addressing the current government deficit to deliver on the sexual and reproductive health and rights commitments for women.”"

"“We children have been missing from the picture for more than two decades when talking about issues of HIV/AIDS.”"

"Stand up, rise up and push forward for a better Africa. Nobody is going to do this for us. We need to do it for ourselves”."

"“Every child has the right to be educated. Education in Botswana must be compulsory.”"

"My shyness and hesitation have died and gone, and I walk with my face unveiled. The confusion and doubt from my crazy, insane mother-in-law has been removed from over my head. My Beloved has summoned me with joyful caresses; my mind is filled with the bliss of the Shabad. Imbued with the Love of my Beloved, I have become Gurmukh, and carefree."

"Veiling and nakedness, they are two faces of the same kind. To see a woman naked, that does not mean she is liberated. It means the woman is just a body, not a mind. Traditional education, even postmodern education, veils the mind; the media veils the mind."

"Who does not know that veiled beauty is more seductive than visible beauty?"

"The Hindu women never go veiled, and never affect concealment, either at home or abroad."

"Stay, stay, O daughter-in-law - do not cover your face with a veil. In the end, this shall not bring you even half a shell. The one before you used to veil her face; do not follow in her footsteps. The only merit in veiling your face is that for a few days, people will say, "What a noble bride has come". Your veil shall be true only if you skip, dance and sing the Glorious Praises of the Lord. Says Kabeer, the soul-bride shall win, only if she passes her life singing the Lord's Praises."

"The education of women, in particular their being awakened to new values, their being trained for new professions, their being awakened to their rights—all this is anathema; it is held to be injurious to them, in fact it is declared to be the way to disrupting society and undermining Islam."

"The parents who send their daughters to college are the enemies of their daughters, not their friends... There is no doubt, that a collegiate girl becomes extremely free, purdahless, immodest and shameless. This is the general consequence of English education and college atmosphere... A girl who loses modesty loses everything... Modesty and faith—they are inseparable companions; when either of them is taken away, the other too goes away."

"In these modern days there is a greater impetus towards higher education on the European lines, and the trend of opinion is strong towards women getting this higher education. Of course, there are some people in India who do not want it, but those who do want it carried the day. It is a strange fact that Oxford and Cambridge are closed to women today, so are Harvard and Yale; but Calcutta University opened its doors to women more than twenty years ago."

"The veil is a political symbol and has nothing to do with Islam...They are using women as a political tool in a political game. Many people are aware of that, but the educational system puts a veil on the mind. The veiling of the mind is more serious. Our slogan at the Arab Women’s Solidarity Association is "Unveil the Mind.""

"43. Grounding the right to abortion in the Fourteenth Amendment and in the concept of substantive due process (Roe v Wade 153, 164) was, and still is, one of the most controversial aspects of Roe v Wade. Justice Stewart concurred in Roe v Wade mainly to pay homage to substantive due process and the Court’s willingness to invoke it so explicitly after having seemingly put the doctrine to rest in Ferguson v Skrupa. Justice Stewart noted that Griswold v Connecticut should itself be understood as a substantive due process case, although the case did not rest expressly on that basis. 44. Justice Rehnquist, one of two dissenters in Roe v Wade, took issue with the new right. He thought the right to an abortion was a form of ‘liberty’ protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, but the Fourteenth Amendment imposed a procedural requirement, not a substantive one. The right, therefore, was only protected against its deprivation without due process of law (Roe v Wade 173). He disagreed that abortion was part of a right to privacy because neither the abortion procedure was private, as abortion involved a doctor, nor was abortion connected to the ‘privacy’ associated with the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures (ibid 172). Moreover, although Justice Rehnquist conceded that due process protected some substantive rights, he thought abortion was not among those because approximately 36 state and territorial legislatures limited abortion at the time the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted (ibid 174–75). He preferred a rational basis test that would permit more deference to the legislature, especially for some restrictions on first-trimester abortions. He thought the ‘compelling state interest’ test was inappropriate: it was borrowed from Equal Protection cases and would leave ‘this area of the law more confused’ (ibid 173), and it would trample upon the legislature’s judgment (ibid 174). He called the Court’s tripartite framework ‘judicial legislation’ not reflective of the founders’ intent (ibid 174). 45. Justice White also dissented. He focused on the claims of women who had no threat to their life or health from carrying a fetus to term, like the plaintiffs before the Court, and noted that they wanted to end the pregnancy potentially for ‘convenience, sham or caprice’ (ibid 221). He thought the resolution of the competing interests ‘should be left with the people and to the political processes’ because ‘nothing in the language or history of the Constitution’ required otherwise (ibid 221–22)."

"37. According to polls, most Americans held views that aligned with Roe v Wade at the time it was decided: ‘64 percent of American believed that abortion should be a personal decision to be made by a woman and her physician’ (Faux 304). Nonetheless, opponents of the decision tried to reverse Roe v Wade with congressional legislation (Emerson 129–30), with a constitutional amendment (Faux 318), and with litigation before the → Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) (Baby Boy Case 18(h), 30–31). All of these efforts failed. 38. More limited efforts to cabin the effects of Roe v Wade proved successful, however. In 1976, Congress passed the Hyde Amendment, which barred federal Medicaid funds for abortion and thereby made abortion inaccessible for many poor women, at least in those states without state funds for such purposes. A narrowly divided Supreme Court upheld the law in Harris v McRae. Opponents of abortion also advanced other laws that impeded access to abortion to varying degrees (Thornburgh v American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists 759), noting that such laws will ‘often shut down clinics’ (Biskupic). Roe v Wade itself signaled that some of these efforts might be permissible by acknowledging the state’s interest in maternal health (Roe v Wade 165), although Doe v Bolton suggested real limits. These efforts caused courts to be ‘drawn further and further into an array of subsidiary technical questions regarding abortion’ (Wilkinson 276). As of 2009, the Supreme Court had decided ‘more than twenty-five cases involving abortion’ (ibid)."

"46. Individual justices continued to critique Roe v Wade in later cases. For example, in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v Casey, Justice Scalia said that the Constitution does not limit states’ ability to regulate abortion ‘because of two simple facts: (1) the Constitution says absolutely nothing about it, and (2) the longstanding traditions of American society have permitted it to be legally proscribed’ (Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v Casey 980 (Scalia, J, dissenting, joined by Rehnquist, CJ, White, J, and Thomas, J)). In his dissent in Whole Woman’s Health v Hellerstedt, Justice Thomas, while not blaming Roe itself for the Court’s ‘illegitimate made-up tests’ (ibid 12, 14), blamed the Court’s ‘special treatment of certain personal liberties’, including those created though substantive due process, for the wrong outcome in many abortion decisions. This special treatment included the right to privacy that lead to Roe v Wade itself (ibid 15)."

"8. Both in the US and abroad, constitutional courts had an important role in defining the permissible limits of legislative attempts to regulate abortion. In the US, a ‘nationwide movement of young lawyers’ sought to use the courts to secure a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion (Garrow (1999) 836–37). Because abortion was regulated at the state level in the United States, Roe v Wade and its companion, Doe v Bolton, ‘were only two of approximately fifteen to twenty roughly simultaneous cases’ percolating through the courts at the time. When the Supreme Court heard Roe v Wade and Doe v Bolton, approximately a dozen such cases were on its docket (ibid 836–37). Abroad, cases in Austria, France and Italy reached the constitutional courts of those nations in 1974, 1975, and 1975, respectively (Ernst et al 759–60; Siegel 357)."

"7. Roe v Wade reached the Supreme Court as part of a growing movement in the US to liberalize abortion law. Liberalization was promoted on the political front with arguments centred on public health, overpopulation, sexual freedom, and feminism (Greenhouse and Siegel 2036–2046). Colorado, North Carolina, and California had, for example, adopted ‘liberalization statutes’ in 1967 (Garrow (1999) 834). The movement to liberalize abortion law was similarly occurring overseas, in places such as Sweden, France, Denmark and the United Kingdom, and activists drew upon each other’s advances (Ernst et al 755, 759)."

"19. The decision established a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion. The Court framed the discussion by acknowledging the sensitive, deeply held, and diverse views on the topic of abortion. However, it suggested, not without criticism by some scholars (Myers 1029 and n. 29), that the law historically was more permissive regarding abortion, especially for abortion performed during the early stages of pregnancy (Roe v Wade 140–41). The Court canvassed Greek and Roman law, English and US statutes, and the medical and legal establishments’ positions on abortion. This analysis supported the Court’s trimester framework set forth later in the opinion (ibid 165). The references to English statutory and case law, in particular, ‘bolstered its own case that the US Constitution created a right to an abortion, even though the Court never explained why foreign law ought to control the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment’ (Calabresi and Zimdahl 872)."

"47. Scholars are divided about whether the Court should have created a constitutional right to abortion. John Hart Ely criticized the Court for not explaining why privacy is involved, and argued the right ‘lacks even colorable support in the constitutional text, history, or any other appropriate source of constitutional doctrine’ (Ely 931–32, 943). Others have echoed this sentiment, calling the Court’s analysis ‘startlingly shoddy’, (Myers at 1027) and ‘outcome-based jurisprudence’ (Lamparello and Swann 2–3). Ronald Dworkin, in contrast, found critics’ distinction between ‘unenumerated rights’ and ‘enumerated rights’ preposterous (Dworkin 390). He applauded the Court’s ability to derive the right to procreative autonomy from a ‘holistic interpretation of the Bill of Rights’ (Dworkin 418–26). Yet others have suggested that the Equal Protection Clause would have been a preferable or an additional justification for the holding (see eg Ginsburg), and that rationale has crept into some subsequent cases. For example, the joint opinion in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v Casey mentioned that ‘[t]he ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives’ (Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v Casey 856). Justice Ginsburg has also mentioned that rationale in later cases (see eg Gonzales v Carhart 172 (Ginsburg, J, dissenting))."

"2. The case has interested many comparatists. Considerable attention has been paid to parallel German and US developments with their different emphases (see eg Gorby and Jonas; Kommers; Glendon; Miedel; Werner; Levy and Somek; Lange; Siegel). Others have used the case to reflect upon developments in countries as diverse as Spain, South Africa, Russia, and Taiwan (see eg Stith; Davis; Johnson; Hung)."

"Q: The audio from your arguments before the Supreme Court is widely available online. Do you ever go back and listen to it? Yes, I do. It’s the argument where 40 years ago, I was saying, “We are not asking this court to decide that abortion is good, or that everyone should have one. We are asking this court to decide that that issue is one for the individual to decide, not the government.” And it’s the same thing that I would say today."

"3. The case has influenced jurists outside the United States. Judges have cited the decision in judgments that liberalize abortion law. For example, this has happened in Canada (see R v Morgentaler (Dickson, CJ at 46; Beetz, J at 113; Wilson, J at 169–171, 181) (holding that Section 251 of the Criminal Code, which restricted access to nontherapeutic abortion, infringed a woman’s right to personal security under § 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms), in South Africa (see Christian Lawyers Association of South Africa and Others v Minister of Health and Others (upholding legislation permitting abortion during the first twelve weeks of pregnancy; → right to life provision in the constitution did not apply to the fetus); Christian Lawyers Association v National Minister of Health and Others (upholding legislation allowing those under the age of 18 to get an abortion without consent of their parents or guardians)), and in Colombia (see Decision C-355/06 (striking as unconstitutional a statute that barred abortion in all instances)). Jurists who have dissented from decisions that restrict abortion have also cited Roe v Wade, such as in Germany (see Schwangerschaftsabbruch I (dissenting opinion of Rupp-von Brünneck, J and Simon, J)). At times, adjudicators have cited the case when they have decided issues outside the abortion context. Examples exist in England (see Rance v Mid-Downs Health Authority and Another (citing Roe v Wade’s summary of English common law in evaluation of plaintiff’s wrongful birth tort claim)) and India (see Gobind v State of M.P (citing Roe v Wade’s privacy language when deciding a constitutional challenge to surveillance law); Naz Foundation v Govt of NCT of Delhi (citing Roe v Wade’s privacy language when invalidating as unconstitutional a criminal law prohibiting homosexual conduct in private), rev’d Suresh Kumar Koushal v Naz Foundation)."

"I look back in history, and there was a time when many states had laws making contraception illegal. The Supreme Court in ’65 ruled (in Griswold v. Connecticut) that there is a right of privacy and that married people have the right to use contraception. And then the Supreme Court in Baird vs. Eisenstadt (1972) said that right of privacy to decide whether you want to bear or beget a child, and therefore the right to use contraception, is [for] married and single people. So, I thought that this would be a case where Roe vs. Wade would be accepted, maybe not just right at first, but within a few years. And that we could go ahead and move on to work on other issues. But while we were doing that, the opposition was gaining strength. And today, we see the opposition being strong, very strong, and we see a lot of people who have forgotten what it was like when abortion was illegal. And you can’t blame ‘em. They’re too young to remember! What we know from the past is that if abortion is illegal, there will be illegal abortion. And if we come to a period that abortion is theoretically legal, but the laws in various states make it almost impossible for women who are younger or poorer to have access, you’re going to have more illegal or self-abortion. So, I still worry. I’m not as frantic now as I was then, because I think, looking at the Supreme Court, we have a better chance of good decisions right now."

"Q: Ten years ago, we asked if you thought the Roe v Wade ruling will stand for another 30 more years. You said, “I despair when I look at who has the power today.” Do you still feel that way? Having Obama as president means that if there are any vacancies on the Supreme Court, I think that Obama would be likely to appoint a judge who would favor Roe vs. Wade. What I worry about now and for the next ten years is, will women still have access to abortion? State legislatures have begun to pass all kinds of restrictions that really make it harder for women to access services. If you look at who’s passing those regulations, they are not people who say, “We’re in favor of abortion being available and we just want to be sure they’re safe.” They are people who are totally opposed to abortion. What they really want is to try and do everything they can to be sure there are no abortions available."

"Q: Abortion is a very emotional issue and a religious issue for a lot of people. As an attorney, you had to argue using very specific language about constitutional rights. Do you think that’s hard for people to understand? Sometimes I think it is, because some people just say, “My faith is opposed to abortion.” But we live in a country where we can have many faiths, and we don’t impose the law of one faith on everybody. And so we go back to the constitution. What was the view of our founders? And it was that there are many parts of life which are so personal – the word privacy is not in the constitution but certainly the concept is – and so the founders basically were saying, “We really believe that the government should not make our most important decisions.” When I was arguing Roe vs. Wade, there were a lot of religious groups that were saying, what the anti-abortion laws do to women in terms of their health, physical and psychological, isn’t right. We’ve got to change it. So the United Methodist Church, Unitarian Universalist Alliance, and the Jewish groups, a whole variety of religious groups filed in our favor."

"6. Most states criminalized abortion at the time of Roe v Wade. Although abortion performed before ‘quickening’ had been legal at the nation’s founding (‘quickening’ refers to the time when the mother can first feel fetal movement), the American Medical Association, starting in the 1850s, promoted the criminalization of abortion, except to save the mother’s life (Greenhouse and Siegel 2035). Texas, the state whose law was challenged in Roe v Wade, made abortion criminal in 1854, and a majority of US states had similar laws at the time the Supreme Court decided Roe v Wade (Roe v Wade 118 n.2; Doe v Bolton 181–82). Consequently, prior to the decision, illegal abortions were common in the United States, with estimates of 1,000,000 a year or ‘one to every four births’ (Calderone 950). The danger of the procedure differed by class. Many doctors ‘secretly performed abortions for women whom they knew and who could pay’, while other women were relegated to ‘unsafe circumstances’ (Garrow (1999) 834)."

"48. The implications of the Court’s methodology have pleased some, but not others. For critics of Roe v Wade, the decision undermined democracy by putting the abortion issue in the hands of an unelected Court, with the result that ‘centrist’ compromises on abortion have been lost (Brooks A23). Critics also claim that the decision has harmed → federalism because decisions about abortion were removed from the state level (Wilkinson 305–11). The decision has also been blamed for undermining the Court’s legitimacy because, critics say, the Court has been ‘motivated by outcomes and ideology, not process and reason’, and this perception, in turn, has politicized the process for nominating Supreme Court justices (Lamparello and Swann 6–7)."

"[M]ost of the quotations I read that day reflected my thoughts accurately. The Houston Post quoted me as “feeling glad for the women of Texas, who now will have access to abortion services.” It also noted my statement that “I would much prefer [that] we did not have the abortion problem, that instead pregnancies be prevented,” and my vow “to lead the legislative battle to liberalize the flow of contraceptive information to minors.” One of the few stories that captured my real feelings on the day we won, however, didn’t appear until a few weeks later, in the Milwaukee Journal: “Sarah Weddington looked uncomfortable as the women pressed close to her, offering their thanks. ‘If I hadn’t done it, someone else would have,’ she explained to them.” Indeed, I saw Roe as part of a much larger effort by many attorneys. I was the one who, through a series of quirks, stood before the Court to represent all of us. Had a different string of events occurred, another case might have been the one to make history. Ron and I also read observations from those who were distressed by the Court’s decision; obviously, not everyone was as pleased as we were about the news. Around the country the antis too had been burning up the telephone wires-but they were talking about how they could overturn the decision, or avoid or blunt its impact. I have always wondered if some of the anti-abortion folk thought the fact that United States and Texas flags flew at half-mast on that January 22, as they did because of President Johnson’s death, was doubly appropriate because of the depths of their disagreement with the decision."

"On May 31, according to the same book, Douglas wrote Blackmmun again: I have your memorandum submitted to the Conference with suggestion that these cases be reargued I feel quite strongly that they should not be reargued. My reasons are as follows. In the first place, these cases which were argued last October have been as thoroughly worked over and considered as any cases ever before the Court in my time. I know you have done yeoman service and I have written two difficult cases, and you have opinions now for a majority, which is 5. There are always minor differences in style, one writing differently [from[ another. But those two opinions of yours in Texas and Georgia are creditable jobs of craftsmanship and will, I think, stand the test of time. While we could sit around and make pages of suggestions, I really don’t think that it is important. The important thing is to get them down."

"The copy of the Roe opinion sent by the Court arrived a few days after the decision. It was a thrill to hold the document Blackmun wrote for the Court. I skimmed it first for the main points: A direct appeal was proper because of the specific denial of injunctive relief regarding a statute declared unconstitutional by a three-judge federal court. Roe had standing to sue; the Does and Dr. Hallford did not. (Geesh, I thought, we went backward on that part. At least the lower court had recognized Hallford’s standing. But it didn’t matter the outcome freed Hallford anyway.) The natural termination of Roe’s pregnancy did not cancel her status as an appropriate plaintiff. Under strict mootness principles, hers would be a situation “capable of repetition, yet evading review.” The Texas statute violated the due-process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which protects from state action the right to privacy, including a woman’s qualified right to terminate pregnancy. the state, however, had a legitimate interest in protecting both the pregnant woman’s health and the potentiality of human life."

"Sitting with Linda and me in the courtroom were Fred Bruner and Roy L. Merrill, Jr. two Dallas lawyers who had joined our case on behalf of their client, James Hubert Hallford, a physician under indictment for allegedly performing illegal abortions. On March 19 they had filed an application for intervention asking that Hallford be included as a third plaintiff. Hallford had been a licensed physician since 1958; among the women who had come to him seeking abortions were rape and incest victims, women suffering from cancer, and women who had contracted German measles, a virus that can cause gross fetal abnormalities, while pregnant. We welcome Hallford’s participation because his problems added weight to our arguments that the statute was vague and could be interpreted in many ways. We were skeptical that he would be recognized to have standing, however; very seldom do federal courts allow people with criminal charges pending against them in state court to escape from the litigation already in progress to a federal court. At another table in the courtroom were representatives of DA Henry Wade and of the Texas attorney general, Crawford Martin. Judge Hughes had notified Martin of the suit because he was the elected official responsible for defending state laws. Linda and were up against the combined forces of the AG’s experienced legal force of some 130 attorneys and the DA’ s legal staff."

"Of Course, we had done our homework. Once trial was set for May 22, 1970, we rushed to prepare and file two affidavits, notarized, signed statements used to prove important facts instead of having a witness testify in court. One contained facts about Jane Roe; the other was filed by Dr. Paul Trickett, the direction of the University of Texas Student Health Center, and presented medical aspects of the abortion issue. The original Texas statutes had been passed to protect a woman’s health in an era when doctors did not know how to prevent infection, and we wanted to show that now, at the time of trial, abortion was a safe procedure and medical problems resulted precisely because abortion was illegal."