The following is taken from George Carlin’s stand-up preformance on HBO’s special George Carlin: Back In Town preformed in New York’s Beacon Theater in 1996. Some of the content was cut down for clarity purposes.

Why is it that most of the people who are against abortion are people you wouldn’t want to fuck in the first place?

These conservatives are really something, aren’t they? They’re all in favor of the unborn, they will do anything for the unborn. But once you’re born (gives the finger) you’re on your own.

Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus, from conception to nine months. After that, they don’t wanna know about you. They don’t wanna hear from you. No-nothing! No neo-natal care, no day care, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you’re pre-born, you’re fine. If you’re preschool, you’re fucked!

Conservatives don’t give a shit about you until you reach military age. Then they think you are just fine. Just what they’ve been looking for. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers.

Pro-life, these people aren’t pro-life, they’re killing doctors. What kind of pro-life is that? What, they’ll do anything they can to save a fetus, but if it grows up to be a doctor they just might have to kill it?

They’re not pro-life, you know what they are? They’re anti-woman! They believe a woman’s primary role is to fuction as a brood mare for the state.

You don’t see many of these white anti-abortion women volunteering to have any black fetuses transplanted into their uterus, do you? No, you don’t see ‘em adopting a whole lotta crack babies, do ya? No, that might be something Christ might do.

And you won’t see a lot of these pro-life people dousing themselves in kerosene and lighting themselves on fire. You know, morally commited religious people in South Vietnam knew how to stage a Goddamn demonstration, didn’t they? They knew how to put on a fuckin’ protest! Light yourself on FIRE! Come on, you moral crusaders, let’s see a little smoke to match that fire in your belly!

Here’s another question I have: How come when it’s us it’s “an abortion,” and when it’s a chickens it’s “an omlette.”

Is a fetus a human being? This seems to be the central question. Well, if a fetus is a human being, how come the census doesn’t count them? If a fetus is a human being, how come when there’s a miscarridge, they don’t have a funeral? If a fetus is a human being, how come people say ‘we have two children and one on the way,’ instead of saying ‘we have three children.’

People say life begins at conception, I say life began about a billion years ago and it’s a continuous process that keeps rolling along.

The really hard-core people will tell you that life begins at fertilization. Fertilization: when the sperm fertilizes the egg. Which is usually a few moments after the man says ‘Gee, honey, I was gonna to pull out, but the phone rang and it startled me.’

But even after the egg is fertilized, it’s still six or seven days before it reaches the uterus and pregnancy begins. And not every egg makes it that far. 80% of a woman’s fertilized eggs are rinsed and flushed out of her body once a month during those delightful few days she has. They wind up on sanatary napkins and yet, they are, fertilized eggs.

So basically what these anti-abortion people are tellin’ us is that any woman who’s had more then one period is a serial killer!

If they really wanna get serious, what about all those sperm that are wasted when the state executes a condemned man and one of these pro-life guys who’s watching cums in his pants? Here’s a guy standing over there with his jockey shorts full of little vinnies and debbies and nobody’s saying a word to the guy.

Not every ejaculation deserves a name!

Catholics, which I was until I reached the age of reason.

Speaking of consistency, Catholics and other Christians are against abortions and are against homosexuals. Well, who has less abortions then homosexuals? Leave these fuckin’ people alone for christsakes! Here is an entire class of people guaranteed never to have an abortion. And the Catholics and Christians are just tossing them aside. You’d think they’d make natural allies.

Speaking of my friends the Catholics, when John Cardinal O’Connor of New York and some of these other cardinals or bishops have experienced their first pregnancies and first labor pains and they’ve raised a couple of children on minimum wage, then I’ll be glad to hear what they have to say about abortion.

In the meantime, what they oughta be doing is telling these priests who have took a vow of chastity to keep their hands off the alter boys. When Jesus said ‘Suffer the little children, come unto me,’ that’s not what he was talking about!

So you know what I tell these anti-abortion people? I say ‘If you think a fetus is more important then a woman, try getting a fetus to wash the shit stains out of your underwear. For no pay and no pension.’

And think of an abortion as term limits. That’s all it is, biological term limits. But you know, the longer you listen to this abortion debate, the more you hear this phrase ‘Sanctity of Life’ You’ve heard that, Sanctity of Life. You believe in it? Personally, I think it’s a bunch of shit. I mean, life is sacred? Who said so? God? Hey, if you read history, you realize that God is one of the leading causes of death. Has been for thousands of years.

Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Christians all taking turns killing each other ’cause God told them it was a good idea. The sword of God, the blood of the lamb, vengence is mine, millions of dead motherfuckers all because they gave the wrong answer to the God question. ‘You believe in God?’ ‘No’ BANG! ‘You believe in God?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘You believe in my God?’ ‘No’ BANG!

My God has a bigger dick then your God!

Thousands of years and all the best wars too. The bloodiest, most brutal wars fought all based on religious hatred, which is fine with me. Anytime a bunch of holy people wanna kill each other, I’m a happy guy.

But don’t be giving me all this shit about the Sanctity of Life. I mean even if there were such a thing, I don’t think it’s something you can blame on God. You know where the Sanctity of Life came from? We made it up. You know why? Cause we’re alive, self-interest. Living people have a strong interest in promoting the idea that somehow life is sacred.

You don’t see Abbott and Costello running around talking about this shit, do you? We’re not hearing a whole lot from Mussolini on the subject. What’s the latest from JFK? Not a goddamn thing, cause Mussolini, JFK, and Abbott and Costello are fuckin’ dead! And dead people give less then a shit about the Sanctity of Life.

Only living people care about [the Sanctity of Life], so the whole thing grows out of a completely biased point of view. It’s a self-serving, man-made, bullshit story.

It’s one of these things we tell ourselves so we’ll feel nobel. Life is sarced, makes you feel nobel. Let me ask you this: If everything that ever lived is dead, and everything alive is gonna die, where’s the sacred part come in? I’m having trouble with that.

Cause I mean even with this stuff we preach about ‘the Sanctity of Life,’ we don’t practice it. Look at what we kill: misquitos and flies, because they’re pests. Lions and Tigers, cause it’s fun! Chickens and pigs, cause we’re hungry. Pheasents and quail, cause it’s fun… and we’re hungry. And people, we kill people, cause they’re pests… and it’s fun!

And you might’ve noticed something else. The Sanctity of Life doesn’t seem to apply to cancer cells, does it. You rarely see a bumper sticker that says ‘Save the Tumors’ or ‘I Brake For Advanced Melanoma.’

Nah, viruses, mold, mildew, maggots, fungus, weeds, e-coli, bacteria, the crabs. Nothing’s sacred about those things. So at best, the Sanctity of Life is kind of selective thing. We get to choose which forms of life we feel are sacred and we get to kill the rest. Pretty neat deal, huh? Know how we got it? We made the whole fuckin’ thing up!

The same way we made the death penalty, we made them both up. Sanctity of Life and the death penalty. Aren’t we versatile?