"What about MY choice?"
Posted on 08/30/2008 10:41:16 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Many people are unfamiliar with Feminists for Life and wonder what the choice of Sarah Palin, who is against abortion rights, signals to the electorate.
Well, let me tell you something about Feminists for Life. In 2003, I decided to investigate this group and its energetic leader, Serrin Foster. What did it mean, I wondered, to be a feminist and actively fight against the right to choose when or whether to have a child?
So I went to a church in sprawling, suburban, wealthy Danville, California to hear Serrin Foster, president of Feminists for Life, speak on "The Feminist Case Against Abortion" to a huge crowd of mainly high-school students.
Founded in 1972, one year before the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the historic Roe vs. Wade decision that made abortion legal in the United States, Feminists for Life now focuses exclusively on practical alternatives to abortion for college-age women.
No woman, argues Foster, should ever have to choose between having a child and a career. "Abortion is a reflection that society has failed women," she tells high school and college students as she tours the country.
"Women deserve better choices," she says and points to practical alternatives and resources available to a young woman who has an unwanted pregnancy. She can choose single parenthood and use food stamps or temporary assistance to needy families. She can choose adoption. Or, college-age women can pressure school campuses to offer child care and family housing so that they never, ever, have to choose between a pregnancy and an education.
Feminism is all about having choices, Foster told me, after her talk. I couldn't agree more. Young women, she says, should have the right to bear a child and have access to high-quality, affordable child care. Again, I heartily agreed.
But Foster is cleverly disingenuous. When I asked what she does to promote child care, her answers were vague and evasive. When I read the organization's brochures aimed at campus physicians and psychologists, I found nothing about campaigning for child care. The real goal is to convince professionals to persuade young women to "choose" to bear a baby.
Despite its protestations, Feminists for Life is not really about choice. You can see this on its Web site, where the slogan "refuse to choose" appeared repeatedly. Nor does the organization challenge the real difficulties working mothers face. Instead, it cleverly appropriates the words "feminist" and "choice" to convince young women that abortion is always an unacceptable choice.
Part of the problem is that Foster either does not know her history or purposefully distorts the past. She spoke that night as though she had invented the idea of child care and describes pioneer feminists of the 1960s and 1970s as selfish, diabolical creatures who never wanted women to have the choice to bear a child.
But she's wrong. The three demands made at the first national march in New York City in 1970 included child care, equal pay for equal work and the legal right to "choose" an abortion. Many feminists, moreover, spent years trying to persuade the institutions where they worked that real equality for women required family-friendly policies, including child care.
Foster also accused Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America of supporting abortion in order to stay in business. But I had to wonder about her own financial goals when I saw, in the organization's magazine, that I could buy a "stunning new logo pin" in either sterling silver or 24-carat gold for $75.
In the end, I decided that Feminists for Life is neither about feminism nor about choice. It is a cunning attempt to convince young women that choice means giving up the right to "choose."
Sarah Palin is the inexperienced woman Sen. John McCain has chosen as his running mate, hoping that she will attract the vital female vote.. It's the worst kind of affirmative action, choosing a person he barely knows, who is completely unprepared to assume any national office. It's like nominating Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court. It's all about ideology and not about competence.
To put it bluntly, Sarah Palin is no Hillary Clinton. Nor does she have the vision and brilliance of Barack Obama. This is an incredible insult to most American women. Just how stupid does he think we are?
I think she answered her own question. ROTFLMAO!!!
TPM posted that?!?! Wow! What a shocker! .....um..... wake me up when I can cast my vote.
BTTT!!
hey ruth, whatcha ben smokin’ man?
It’s like nominating Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court to nominate Sarah Palin for Vice-President? I like Justice Thomas, so I think that means I would like Sarah as veep.
Ruth Rosen, liberal writer, after watching the movie ‘World Trade Center’, had this to say in her movie review:
“...As my mind regained its critical faculties, however, another kind of shock set in. I suddenly realized that Oliver Stone’s movie reinforces the Big Lie — endlessly repeated by Dick Cheney, echoed and amplified by the right-wing media — that 9/11 was somehow linked to Iraq or supported by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.”
What a fool!
And that makes two of us. I wasn’t fired up about November until early yesterday morning. I think we’ve got a chance now. I just hope the ‘RATs and their toadies in the “media” keep talking their trash.
To put it bluntly, Sarah Palin is no Hillary Clinton. Nor does she have the vision and brilliance of Barack Obama. This is an incredible insult to most American women. Just how stupid does he think we are?
Notice how the writer takes one issue, disagrees with Palin, and thus proclaims that she has no experience. Needless to say, the writer acts as if Palin has essentially done nothing. She never was a mayor, head of an aggressive ethics commission, governor, etc and with real accomplishments in each capacity.
The obvious tactic for the left in dealing with Palin is to have all the staunchest critics be fellow women that supposively should have immunity. What is going to happen of course is that a variety of female voters are really going to get a taste of female hypocrisy and it will not sit well.
These nasty, rambling hit pieces just show desperation from the other side. They are hateful and clearly are nearly irrational and non-sensical in their illogic.
The media is obsessed with narrative and personality. Palin’s story is compelling to nearly everyone.
Aren’t they saying that abortion is not a good choice? I think they are saying that the women should choose between adoption and keeping her baby. Isn’t that a good choice? They are saying choose life, and then, having chose to carry your baby to term, then make your choice of what to do.
I don’t understand the author’s dislike of the organization.
And there you go.
she’s a 60’s style feminist i’ll bet
Susan B. Anthony might have an answer for you but Im not sure youd like it.
I was not aware she was pro-life. :) Do you happen to know of any quotes of hers? Might be good to pass around!
Gotta love those weak 60's sisters who couldn't be punished with babies. Guess they can't repopulated the marxist ranks fast enough now to keep enough mindless slaves in the collective. How sad. Bye Bye...
And thank God for it.
Stupid, sick liberal dems...
If Roe V Wade had been decided the other way the dems would today have millions more voters.
They have murdered a large chunk of their own voter base.
Evil, thy name is democrat.
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