Pro-Life Feminism Is The Future

Washington Post ^ | May 23rd 2010 | Colleen Carroll Campbell

[Steelfish]

Pro-Life Feminism Is The Future Colleen Carroll Campbell

Can you be a feminist and oppose abortion in all circumstances? Can you be a person of faith and support abortion in some circumstances?

The very notion of pro-life feminism is an affront to the vociferous leaders of America's abortion-rights lobby and the aging ranks of its feminist establishment - two groups that are, for all practical purposes, indistinguishable. The overlap between these two groups and their shared indignation at organizations like Feminists for Life and women like Sarah Palin is no accident. It is a consequence of their decades-long campaign to make feminism synonymous with a woman's right to abort her child and to marginalize any free-thinking feminist who dares to disagree.

We hear a lot about the absolutism of women like Palin, who opposes abortion even in the hard cases. Often overlooked is the absolutism of her critics - avowedly "pro-woman" abortion-rights advocates who cannot bring themselves to condemn even partial-birth or sex-selective abortion, the latter of which is an increasingly common practice in the U.S. and abroad in which unborn girls are targeted for elimination simply because they are girls.

For many American women, the feminism that once attracted them with its lofty goal of promoting respect for women's dignity has morphed into something antithetical to that dignity: a movement that equates a woman's liberation with her license to kill her unborn child, marginalizes people of faith if they support even modest restrictions on abortion, and colludes with a sexist culture eager to convince a woman in crisis that dealing with her unplanned pregnancy is her choice and, therefore, her problem.

Many women are not buying it. They are attracted instead to the message of groups like Feminists for Life, which tells women facing unplanned pregnancies that they should...

[Tribune7]

The biggest supporters of unrestricted abortion are guys who like to chase underage girls.

[pallis]

I could care one wit for feminism, but if this helps stop this nation’s unrestrained murder and sacrifice of children, I’m all for it. Moloch has been fed enough.

[Jack Hydrazine]

“Pro-Life Feminism” = oxymoron.

[sthguard]

Only if you limit it to feminism in its modern radical form. The original goals of equality and respect are quite compatible with the pro-life movement.

[Lobsterback]

In ‘Going Rogue” Palin sort of preaches pro life feminism.

[ConservativePsychProf]

Not really. http://www.feministsforlife.org/

[pissant]

any feminism is about as useful masculinism. It’s worthless chatter.

[Huskrrrr]

[Burkean]

Feminism’s goal is to empower members of society who have been disenfranchised and whose choices are marginalized by those with more power. There are pro-life feminists who take this point of view, and extend their pursuit of rights not just to women, but to the unborn, who are the least powerful of us all.

The entire feminist movement was turned on its head by the Clinton Lewinsky fiasco. Groups like NOW showed their true colors when they shrank from condemining Clinton for doing something they had fought against a decade earlier.

[Vanders9]

This is a well-known radical strategy. They infiltrate genuine grass-roots protest movements, work their way to the top by working harder than everyone else (easy to do because few of them have any other responsibility than being an "activist") and then drag the movement over to their socialist/marxist agenda, marginilising all those whose prime concern was the initial protest. In fact, the protest itself becomes just another stick to beat the culture up with. This has gone on so far now that the campaign for nuclear disarmament is no longer interested in getting rid of nuclear weapons; the feminist movement declines to comment on abuse of women; the Unions are no longer concerned with helping ordinary people in the workplace, and the environmental lobby welcomes ecological disasters as ammunition for their campaign to ditch capitalism.

The world is a topsy-turvy place indeed.

[fullchroma]

Not to brag or anything but I’ve been a member of FFL for almost 20 years, served on the board and came up with one of their slogans — Women Deserve Better.

Great group of very warm, funny, feminine women who speak at college campuses all around the country and change hearts and minds with every visit. A few years ago those hags at NOW deemed FFL “their greatest threat.”

Much credit goes to the amazing President, Serrin Foster.

[IronJack]

The very notion of pro-life feminism is an affront to the vociferous leaders of America's abortion-rights lobby and the aging ranks of its feminist establishment - two groups that are, for all practical purposes, indistinguishable.

Only because the feminist Left has successfully triangulated the causes. But the fact is, abortion has NOTHING to do with women's equality or liberation. It's time those issues were decoupled for good, which will utterly destroy the abortion industry and return "feminism" to its suffrage roots, where it can reclaim some moral authority.

[Talisker]

Nice, concise description of the problem. Breath of fresh air. Thanks.

[Lorianne]

No, it’s not.
Feminism doesn’t belong to the ‘pro-Choice’ Western feminists.

There are millions of women the world over who are feminists and who would never dream of asking for their government to sanction abortion.

Unfortunately, Western feminists and their enablers are engaged in cultural colonialism the world over on this issue.

[Lorianne]

Well said.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Thank you for your contribution to a more intelligent civilization!

Good also to see this in WaPo!

[BenKenobi]

Historically, feminism used to be prolife. It’s only the radical feminists who support abortion.

[Lorianne]

Yes,that’s true.
It’s the radical pro-abortion Western feminists who have usurped traditional Feminism, not the other way around.