pro-woman, pro-life

"All who are genuinely committed to the advancement of women can and must offer a girl who is pregnant, frightened, and alone a better alternative than the destruction of her own unborn child." -Mary Ann Glendon, Harvard Law professor, pro-life feminist, and one of the "50 Most Influential Women Lawyers in America" according to National Law Journal

Yes, you read that correctly. Glendon is a feminist... and she is pro-life. That is not an oxymoron, and that is actually not uncommon. True feminists are pro-life.

Some of you just got upset with me. You are thinking, "That's not fair. I am a feminist, and that is precisely why I am pro-choice," or, "Abortion is about empowering women. Without it, women would be suppressed," or, "If anything, pro-lifers are anti-woman." But deathroe.com explains:

"If you want to see the weakest and most subservient women in America, just look at the faces of those entering an abortion clinic. What you will see is sadness, desperation, fear, and resignation. What you will not see is women who feel empowered or in control.

Their faces make it clear that, like suicide, abortion is a tragic choice made by desperate people who have been convinced they have no other choice. Better than anyone else, women who submit to abortion understand why no woman was ever admired for having an abortion, and why no woman ever bragged about her abortion, and why no woman ever climbed off an abortionist’s table with a higher opinion of herself than she had when she climbed onto it.

This nonsense that women must have the right to kill their children in order to be equal to men is an invention of the abortion industry. With almost no exceptions, pioneers of the Women’s Movement like Susan B. Anthony, Mattie Brinkerhoff, Sarah Norton, Emma Goldman, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were outspoken opponents of legal abortion. Alice Paul, who wrote the original Equal Rights Amendment, called abortion "the ultimate exploitation of women." Even suffragist newspapers such as Woodhull’s and Claflin’s Weekly, had editorial policies which openly attacked both abortion and abortionists.

These early feminists saw that abortion is patronizing and paternalistic, and that a woman’s willingness to submit to it doesn’t free her, it degrades her. They understood that legalized abortion is nothing more than a safety net for sexually predatory and sexually irresponsible men. Today, after over [37] years of legalized abortion, that view has been so thoroughly proven true that some abortion advocates no longer even bother to deny it; in fact, some say it should be celebrated.

On May 11, 1990, the PBS radio program Spectrum featured the staunchly pro-choice Ann Taylor-Flemming saying, “I came of age with the women’s movement. It has given license to my ambitions and dreams, and filled me with the fervor for equality that permeates all that I do. But this time, I want to turn the tables a bit. Take an issue that always seems like a women’s issue and pitch it directly towards the men out there. And that issue is abortion... it’s time now to invite the men of America back in, to ask them to raise their voices for choice... I dare say that many of them have impregnated women along the way, and then been let off the hook in a big, big way – emotionally, economically and every other way – when the women went ahead and had abortions... the sense of relief for themselves was mixed with sympathy for and gratitude towards those women whose ultimate responsibility it was to relieve them of responsibility by having abortions... it would sure be nice to hear from all those men out there whose lives have been changed, bettered, and substantially eased because they were not forced into unwanted fatherhood.”

It is hard to imagine that even the most bigoted male chauvinist would suggest that women have a responsibility to let men who impregnate them “off the hook” by submitting to abortion. Yet here is that very argument being espoused by someone who claims to be an advocate for women.

Today, abortion apologists continue to push the idea that having a clean place to kill their children is the cornerstone of women’s equality. That lie is a self-serving perversion of the basic values of legitimate feminism. As pro-life feminist Melissa Simmons-Tulin once said, “Women will never climb to equality over the dead bodies of their children.”"

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I recently began reading David C. Reardon's famous book Aborted Women, Silent No More. In it, he verifies that to be pro-woman is to be pro-life through the firsthand perspectives of women who have suffered abortions themselves. The survey sample is typical in age, marital status, family size, race, and number of repeat abortions; thus, it has the strength of providing a long term view of the attitudes of aborted women and of clearly showing that "dissatisfaction and regrets over abortion grow with time" (p. 7).

Reardon discovered that the majority of women did not experience the abortion as a choice at all. 83% of the women surveyed indicated they would definitely have chosen against abortion if their husbands or boyfriends, abortion counselors, doctors, and family members had suggested alternatives. Social and family pressures were generally in favor of abortion to the extent that "nearly 55% of the respondents felt they had been`very much forced' to abort by others" (p. 11). In short, Reardon revealed that abortion hardly provides women the "freedom of choice" it promises. He writes:

"The hundreds of women who have joined together here to share their stories... have done so in order to separate the realities of abortion from the myths and slogans. They come from all parts of the country, from all walks of life. Some are rich, others poor. Some aborted for reasons of health; some because they could not afford a child. A few aborted because their pregnancies were the result of rape; others because the child they carried might have been deformed. Others aborted purely for the sake of convenience.

But despite their many differences, all these women feel that they were deceived and manipulated. Together, they are determined to save other women from the same fate. For these women, abortion is not some great "privilege" which has been granted to their gender. Instead they see abortion as a tool by which women have been abandoned and exploited.

Contrary to the popular slogan "freedom of choice," women who have experienced it know abortion is seldom, if ever, a "free choice." Instead, legalized abortion has become a tool for the manipulation and exploitation of women. As will be seen, many of these women were forced to abort by boyfriends and husbands who begged and threatened them to "do the sensible thing." Some were forced to abort by insistent parents. Others were intimidated into abortion by physicians who were afraid of malpractice suits, or by social workers seeking to reduce the welfare rolls. Still others felt forced to abort because of the social prejudice against unwed mothers, or because of a social insistence that they handle their problems alone. But whatever the pressures they faced, all of these women felt backed into a corner and saw abortion as the only way out. They were made to feel trapped and isolated. For nearly all women, abortion is experienced not as an act of "choice," but as an act of despair- their only choice.

The price women pay for being abandoned and exploited by the "privilege" of abortion is extremely high. Women who have abortions quickly learn that it is not nearly as "safe and easy" as pro-abortionists would have them believe. Instead, abortion is dangerous to both the physical and mental health of women. In fact, as we will see, half of all aborted women experience some immediate or long-term physical complications, and almost all suffer from emotional or psychological aftershocks.

Instead of being a giant step forward for women's rights, legal abortion is the most destructive manifestation of discrimination against women today. The abortion mentality is sexism incarnate. This sexism is apparent in four ways.

First, with abortions easily and legally available, as well as socially acceptable, it is easier than ever for men to sexually exploit women. When their promises of love end in pregnancy, these uncommitted and selfish men are free to manipulate women into abortions so as to free themselves of unwanted commitments. They whine and pout about doing the "sensible thing" or resort to threats, "If you don't have an abortion, I'll leave you." In either case the end result is the same: the women face the risks and guilts of abortion alone. And if a woman resists such coercion, her exploiter can simply deny all personal and financial responsibility for his "unwanted" child, saying, "You're stuck with it now, babe. After all, you could have had an abortion." Thus the abortion "choice" is just one more arena in which men condition their love and respect on the basis of women's obedience to their desires.

Second, beyond subjecting women to manipulation and threats of abandonment, the abortion mentality attacks the unique value of female sexuality. This is a result of the pro-abortion rhetoric (generally promulgated by population control zealots) which portrays abortion not as an alternative to childbirth, but as preferable to childbirth. This attempt to de-sex women, to separate them from their reproductive potential, has eroded the natural pride women enjoy in being able to conceive and bear children— a creative wonder which no man can duplicate. Instead of praising this unique potential of women, the abortion mentality belittles it, or at best, dismisses it as commonplace. No other public policy has ever attempted to undermine a creative capacity of one half of its population.

Third, women are being abandoned by a society which has no patience for a trial unique to women— an unplanned pregnancy. Rather than receiving the love and support needed to cope with this challenge, women are offered the easy way out, the "quick-fix," the cover-up: abortion. They are seen as second-rate citizens with second-rate problems, and so they are handed a makeshift "solution." They themselves are "socially aborted." Abortion is a superficial and potentially dangerous answer to the challenges of a pregnant woman. Abortion is the "cheap love" which society offers as a substitute for costly care and honest commitment. Though offered superficial support in making their abortion decisions, women must always face the consequences alone. Abortion, unlike childbirth, is always a lonely process.

Lastly, while women have the right to both family and career, the abortion mentality tells women that one must be sacrificed for the other. Women are made to feel that they must "plan" children around their careers, because "unplanned" children will ruin their lives. Thus, abortion is defended with the argument that women are restricted by the limits of their careers, their education, or their finances. Faced with these limits, the sexist abortion mentality says women are not strong enough to survive an unplanned pregnancy, much less to raise an "unwanted" child or endure giving him or her up for adoption. Instead of helping women to be strong, independent, and capable of handling their lives in spite of social prejudices against "problem" pregnancies, the expediency of abortion encourages women to be weak, submissive, dependent, and incapable of dealing with unexpected challenges. Just as in what many feminists consider the traditional, male-dominated social order, the abortion mentality dictates to women what they cannot do, what they cannot handle.

In the simplest of terms, abortion has been sold to women under false premises. We have been lied to, manipulated, and exploited. For too long we have remained silent, too ashamed to speak out, too ashamed to admit our errors. Now this has changed. Those who have experienced abortion firsthand are no longer willing to be silent."

Today, the courageous women who spoke up to Reardon are the inspiration for one of the largest post-abortion healing ministries in the nation. The Silent No More Awareness Campaign seeks to expose the lies surrounding abortion through the testimonies of hurting women and men who want to help others avoid intense pain. Their stories are filled with tears and heartbreak, but their words are saving lives and hearts.

I stand by what I said: True feminists are pro-life. I am pro-woman. I am pro-life.

Vita Pro Omni!