The Feminist Case Against Abortion

The abortion debate is full of horror stories on both sides of the issue. Coercive and unethical counselors lie to vulnerable women and pressure them. This has happened in some abortion clinics as well as some pregnancy care centers. Women have died from botched abortions, both before abortion was legalized and after, when it is supposed to be safe. Fanatics resort to violence on both extremes of the pro-choice/pro-life spectrum.

Focusing on these isolated incidents and extreme cases makes for effective fund-raising. What it does not do is help women - which was what the original feminist movement set out to do. In the 1960's, certain factions of the women's movement made a drastic about-face.

The feminist movement was born more than two hundred years ago when Mary Wollstonecraft wrote "A Vindication of the Rights of Women." After decrying the sexual exploitation of women, she condemned those who would "either destroy the embryo in the womb, or cast it off when born." Shortly thereafter, abortion became illegal in Great Britain.

The now revered feminists of the 19th century were also strongly opposed to abortion because of their belief in the worth of all humans. Like many women in developing countries today, they opposed abortion even though they were acutely aware of the damage done to women through constant child-bearing. They opposed abortion despite knowing that half of all children born died before the age of five. They knew that women had virtually no rights within the family or the political sphere. But they did not believe abortion was the answer.

Without known exception, the early American feminists condemned abortion in the strongest possible terms. In Susan B. Anthony's newsletter, The Revolution, abortion was described as "child murder," "infanticide" and "foeticide." Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who in 1848 organized the first women's rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York, classified abortion as a form of infanticide and said, "When you consider that women have been treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit."

Anti-abortion laws enacted in the latter half of the 19th century were a result of advocacy efforts by feminists who worked in an uneasy alliance with the male-dominated medical profession and the mainstream media. The early feminists understood that, much like today, women resorted to abortion because they were abandoned or pressured by boyfriends, husbands and parents and lacked financial resources to have a baby on their own.

Ironically, the anti-abortion laws that early feminists worked so hard to enact to protect women and children were the very ones destroyed by the Roe v. Wade decision 100 years later - a decision hailed by the National Organization for Women (NOW) as the "emancipation of women." 

The goals of the more recent NOW-led women's movement with respect to abortion would have outraged the early feminists. What Elizabeth Cady Stanton called a "disgusting and degrading crime" has been heralded by Eleanor Smeal, former president of NOW and current president of the Fund for a Feminist Majority, as a "most fundamental right."

Betty Friedan, credited with reawakening feminism in the 1960's with her landmark book, The Feminine Mystique, did not even mention abortion in the early edition. It was not until 1966 that NOW included abortion in its list of goals. Even then abortion was a low priority.

It was a man - abortion rights activist Larry Lader, who remains active today - who credits himself with guiding a reluctant Friedan to make abortion an issue for NOW. Lader had been working to repeal the abortion laws based on population growth concerns, but state legislators were horrified by his ideas. (Immigration and improved longevity were fueling America's population growth - not reproduction, which in fact had declined dramatically.)

Lader teamed up with a gynecologist, Bernard Nathanson, to co-found the National Alliance to Repeal Abortion Laws, the forerunner of today's National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL). 

Lader suggested to the NOW leadership that all feminist demands (equal education, jobs, pay, etc.) hinged on a woman's ability to control her own body and procreation. After all, employers did not want to pay for maternity benefits or lose productivity when a mother took time off to care for a newborn or sick child. Lader convinced the NOW leadership that legalized abortion was the key to the workplace.

Dr. Nathanson, who later became a pro-life activist, states in his book, Aborting America, that the two were able to convince Friedan that abortion was a civil rights issue. Later he admitted that they simply made up the numbers of women dying from illegal abortions, which had been a major point in their argument. 

Lader's and Nathanson's strategy was highly effective. NOW has made the preservation of legal abortion its number one priority. Its literature repeatedly states that access to abortion is "the most fundamental right of women, without which all other rights are meaningless."

With this drastic change, a highly visible faction of the women's movement abandoned the vision of the early feminists: a world where women would be accepted and respected as women. There are now 1.3 million surgical abortions per year in the United States. The Alan Guttmacher Institute (the research arm of Planned Parenthood) reports that women have abortions for two primary reasons: lack of financial resources and lack of emotional support. 

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 Feminists for Life is dedicated to systematically eliminating the reasons that drive women to abortion, primarily lack of resources and support, because women deserve better.