At a conference sponsored by the Illinois Citizens for the Medical Control of
Abortion in 1969, Betty Friedan said, “There is only one voice that needs to be heard
on the question of the final decision as to whether a woman will or will not bear a
child and that is the voice of the woman herself. Her own . . . conscious choice . . .
Motherhood will only be liberated to be a joyous and responsible human act when
women are free to make with full conscious choice and full human responsibility the
decision to be mothers.”5 In a memorandum to colleagues in December 1972, Jimmye
Kimmey, Executive Director of the Association for the Study of Abortion, proposed
the right to choose that Friedan implies here as an appropriate slogan for the
campaign to reform or repeal restrictive abortion laws. As against other possibilities,
the right to choose possessed two advantages. First, it was “short” and “catchy”
enough to counter the opposition’s watchword, “the right to life.” Second, it let
women decide. As Kimmey continued: