In fact, one of the most recognized feminists groups today that is not pro-abortion has to specify that fact in its name: Feminists for Life.
This was not always the case. Early pioneers for women's rights did not ignore the issue of abortion, even though it was illegal at the time and a taboo subject. In fact, they were outspoken about the matter — but only to criticize the practice, and connect it with the very subjugation of women that they rallied and fought so hard against.
Susan B. Anthony, a leader of the early feminist movement and co-founder of the feminist newspaper The Revolution, denounced the practice of abortion in the July 8, 1869 edition of her paper, calling it “child-murder.”
She added that while the woman who aborts her child is at fault (a common theme at the time in articles condemning the practice) she identified the greater fault from one who brought her to it:
Guilty? Yes. No matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; But oh, thrice guilty is he who drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime!
In a letter to Julia Ward Howe in October of 1873, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the co-founder of The Revolution, expressed her agreement: “When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit.”
These two founding mothers of women's rights were not alone in their belief that abortion exemplified everything they opposed:
When a man steals to satisfy hunger, we may safely conclude that there is something wrong in society — so when a woman destroys the life of her unborn child, it is an evidence that either by education or circumstances she has been greatly wronged. (Mattie Brinkerhoff in The Revolution, September 2, 1869)
“Every woman knows that if she were free, she would never bear an unwished-for child, nor think of murdering one before its birth” (Victoria Woodhull in Wheeling, West Virginia Evening Standard, November 17, 1875).
“Abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women” (Alice Paul, author of the original 1923 Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), and opponent of its later inclusion of abortion rights).
Child murderers practice their profession without let or hindrance, and open infant butcheries unquestioned…. Is there no remedy for all this ante-natal child murder?… Perhaps there will come a time when…an unmarried mother will not be despised because of her motherhood…and when the right of the unborn to be born will not be denied or interfered with. (Sarah Norton, in Woodhull's and Claffin's Weekly, November 19, 1870)
Have women really been emancipated? Have they, in fact, come such a long way since the suffragist pioneers? They have votes, they have more equal pay. They have careers, and the appearance of being peers to men.
Abortion, however, has been embraced by the daughters of those who so vehemently opposed it. The “modern” feminist movement has resulted in women dressing to please men, while pornography is more readily accessible and more profitable an industry than ever before. Yes, abortion has come out of the actual and figurative “back alley,” from being taboo to being a common, even celebrated practice, but with it has come the rest of the sexual exploitation of women — mainstream pornography, legalized prostitution, and the expectation of promiscuity.
Indeed, the founding mothers of women's rights could not possibly equate the pro-life movement and Catholic teaching on abortion as a backward step toward the Dark Ages. It is their heiresses, the daughters of the cause, who have condemned their sisters and daughters to a slavery to men that could not have been conceived by their great-grandmothers.
G.K. Chesterton remarked in What's Wrong with the World that the definition of a feminist was “one who dislikes the chief feminine characteristics” for so adamantly wishing women to be like men. It is my opinion that if the feminist of Chesterton's time disliked women, the present-day feminist hates her sex so much she is bent on its enslavement and destruction.
Not only are NOW and Planned Parenthood traitors to their mothers' cause, but also any organization that supports or extols them as empowering women and girls, including the Komen Foundation (Race for the Cure), The Girl Scouts of America, and the American Girl Company. I would as soon hand my daughter, my wife, or my sisters over to a pimp than to those modern feminists who have betrayed their foremothers and sold their sex further into slavery.
© Copyright 2005 Catholic Exchange
Paul Nowak is the author of Guerrilla Apologetics for Catholics, and has written for LifeNews.com. His new book, Guerrilla Apologetics: Pro-Life will be available in November at www.gapologetics.com.
