Posted on 10/22/2005 11:49:32 AM PDT by WildReeling
Abortion advocacy has become synonymous with the modern feminist movement. Groups such as the National Organization for Women (NOW) have become so outspoken in their abortion rights campaign that the group is seen as “pro-abortion” as much or more than it is seen as “feminist.”
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!"
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(Excerpt) Read more at catholicexchange.com ...
This article is true, as far as it goes. Some of Anthony's writings would also strike modern people as racist.
The standard feminist response to these allegations is that abortion was frequently fatal to women and that her racial perspective was a function of the times she lived in.
I'm torn on the racial issue because the same discussion happens about the founding fathers.
But the abortion question shows how much feminists have lost touch - how it could be good feminist to kill your child or how that can be defended blows my mind.
And
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.
Excellent article.
They will see a betrayed generation of young women, dead babies and rampant sexual diseases that will require soft advertising on television to let them know that no matter what disease they have they can still have a 'meaningful relationship',as long as they take their meds and break it gently to the fool sleeping with them.
Feminisim is not only every mother's nightmare for her daughter but also for her son.
Very much it (feminism) is a nightmare for a son's mother. I warn my son often -- 'Is she a feminist? Because you might find she hates men; won't be a good relationship for you.'
Just a good article ping.
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Interesting read ping.
My son is three months old and I and his father will have to be evervigilant. Most of the young women out there today have about as much depth to them as a grave.
Re: This article is true, as far as it goes. Some of Anthony's writings would also strike modern people as racist.
What exactly did she say that would strike modern people as racist?
Yes, but they are easy to spot. My son brought a feminist sort of young woman to a Shakespeare in the Park with us. She was so mouthy and sarcastic with him, put him down for not having quick repartee (he was homeschooled) -- he hated being with her. We had a great discussion with him about what had happened, what it showed, how he felt with her, why to avoid her and her ilk. He learned a lot. I won't hesitate to do it again, if needed.
Hate that the son had to put up with that in front of his parents,but, when opprotunity presents itself so neatly wrapped we must rip the wrapping off and reveal the treasure inside for our loved ones. And by the same token, they for us.
That is an argument that the latter day feminists have ignored - that the "freedom" provided by contraception and abortion actually was freedom for the men, who no longer had to worry about any responsibility tied to sex...
It would help everyone, including feminist, to get the discussion back to these "humanistic" roots. The feminist movement lost steam after Roe V. Wade, and disintegrated into Balkanized, special-interest factions that alienated most people. Abortion itself may become irrelevant as technology takes over the issue, but not the underlying factors of love, responsibility and morality.
Good article
Not all feminists are pro-choice. One cannot pigeonhole "Feminism" to one platform of one group.
Too many people equate "Feminism" with one group of people in one geoghaphic area. "Feminism" is worldwide and diverse.
Likewise, Feminism does NOT equal one group of Western women's values. (Although many Western women think it does, or should).
Well, as an ex-feminist (I considered myself one for many years), there is very little of their platform to which I still subscribe. Abortion, no thanks. Working and leaving your kid in day care, a bankrupt idea of the first order. Doing a man's job, whatever it is -- no. "Men and women are the same, they are just programmed differently" -- this is SO not true. "We can change the world if only men are raised with women's values" -- so terribly wrong, and the fruits so putrid, I cannot believe I ever bought it.
Human rights, to that I subscribe.
Thanks for this article.
I'll see if I can get a better source than about.com but at least they have a summary, even if it minimizes the Susan B. Anthony racism question
Some of Susan B. Anthony's writings were also quite racist by today's standards, particularly those from the period when she was angry that the Fifteenth Amendment wrote the word "male" into the constitution for the first time in permitting suffrage for freedmen. She sometimes argued that educated white women would be better voters than "ignorant" black men or immigrant men.In the late 1860s she even portrayed the vote of freedmen as threatening the safety of white women. George Francis Train, whose capital helped launch Anthony and Stanton's Revolution newspaper, was a noted racist.
http://womenshistory.about.com/library/bio/blanthony.htm
Thanks for the ping!
Margaret Sanger's writings were also feminist and racist - yet the racist aspect is minimized by the organization she founded
(Planned Parenthood).
Anthony was ahead of her time a women's rights pioneer; it is not incomprehensible some of her views failed to trancend the culture of her time.
She also was, until recently, the only woman to appear on U.S. coinage.
Some of the earliest feminists writings are archived at RightGrrl, and they are interesting reading:
http://www.rightgrrl.com/
http://www.rightgrrl.com/wquotes.html
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