Select Quayle Topics: Women's Issues
My position is that I understand from a medical situation, immediately after a rape is reported, that a woman normally, in fact, can go to the hospital and have a D and C. At that time... that is before the forming of a life. That is not anything to do with abortion.
-- Senator Dan Quayle explaining that Dilatation and Curettage, a form of abortion which occurs after fertilization, is not really abortion. (the Washington post, 11/03/88)

You're a very strong woman... Though this would be a traumatic experience that you would never forget, I think that you would be very successful in life.
-- Senator Dan Quayle telling an 11-year-old girl why he would want her to have the baby if she were raped by her father, 10/18/88 (reported in Esquire, 8/92)

I hope I never have to deal with it. But obviously I would counsel her and talk to her and support her on whatever decision she made.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle responding to Larry King's question of how he would react if his 13-year-old daughter chose to have an abortion. (CNN, July 22, 1992) Marilyn Quayle later remarked that her daughter would "take the child to term."

[Abortion] is not an issue with the American people. It is a figment of your imagination if you think that this is an issue that is talked about a lot.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle to reporters while flying back to Washington on September 23. [From the Associated Press 9/24/92]

Most women do not want to be liberated from their essential natures as women.
-- Vice-President Dan Quayle, while campaigning in Kansas City, MO, 9/2/92 (reported in the NY times, 9/3/92)

Speaking as a man, it's not a woman's issue. Us men are tired of losing our women.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle talking about breast cancer

We're in Florida.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle explaining why he had just purchased four peaches (and no citrus fruits -- for which Florida is famous) at a Publix supermarket in Oakland Park, Florida. Georgia (which IS famous for peaches) did not gain from the transaction, however; the peaches were from Chile. (The Sunstenial)