"QUESTION: But any doctor, I suppose, you would say, may refuse her? MRS. WEDDINGTON: Certainly, Your Honor. He may refuse any kind of medical procedure whatsoever. QUESTION: But the State may not; yes. MRS. WEDDINGTON: Here it’s the question of whether or not the State, by the statute, will force the woman to continue. The woman should be given that freedom, just as the doctor has the freedom to decide what procedures he will carry out and what he will refuse to his patients. QUESTION: To be sure that I get your argument in focus, I take it from recent remarks that you are urging upon us abortion on demand of the woman alone, not in conjunction with her physician? MRS. WEDDINGTON: I am urging that in this particular context this statute is unconstitutional. That in the Baird vs. Eisenstadt case this Court said, “If the right of privacy is to mean anything, it is the right of the individual, whether married or single, to make determinations for themselves.” It seems to me that you cannot say this is a woman of this particular doctor, and this particular woman. It is, it seems to me, -- QUESTION: Well, doesn’t it follow from that, then, that a woman can come into a doctor’s office and say, “I want an abortion”. MRS. WEDDINGTON: And he can say “I’m sorry, I don’t perform them.” QUESTION: And then what does she do? MRS. WEDDINGTON: She goes elsewhere, if she so chooses. If she stays with that – you know, that’s an impossible question. Certainly, I don’t think the State could say the first doctor a woman goes to shall make that determination and she cannot go elsewhere."
Roe v. Wade

January 1, 1970

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Original Language: English

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pp.49-50

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade