Foster links pro-life views, abortion [at Dartmouth College]

Pro-life and pro-choice advocates crowded into the Rockefeller Center Wednesday to see Serrin Foster, president of the pro-life group Feminists for Life, discussed the connection between feminism and the pro-life position. According to Foster, both groups can work together, despite opposing viewpoints, to address the lack of state-provided support and resources that “drives women to abortion,” she said.

“I’m not here to criminalize women,” Foster said. “I want to free women from abortion. Abortion is a reflection that our society has failed to meet the needs of women.”

According to Foster, the current abortion debate is polarizing and forces women to choose between the “woman’s side” and the “baby’s side.”

Foster said the ideals of feminism support the equality of all people, including women and unborn children.

In the 1970s the American feminist movement rejected the use of force to “dominate, control or destroy one another,” a statement Foster said should apply to fetuses.

Abortion issues were an important factor in the women’s rights movement of the 19th and 20th centuries, Foster said, and influenced discussion of women’s suffrage among leaders such as Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Some suffragists believed that after gaining the right to vote, woman would be empowered to choose alternatives to abortion, Foster said.

Despite laws against the practice, abortion was common in the 1800s, according to Foster.

American feminist Alice Paul, who led the movement to achieve women’s suffrage in the United States, connected abortion and women’s rights, Foster said. During a conference in the 1970s, Paul referred to abortion as “the ultimate exploitation of women,” according to Foster.

But the “second wave” of women’s rights movements during this time resulted in the creation of other women’s organizations that “didn’t ask the right questions,” Foster said.

In her speech, Foster disputed the views of Bernard Nathanson and Larry Lader, who co-founded the organization that became the National Abortion Rights Action League in 1968. Nathanson, was a self-described “ex-abortionist” who cited the number of “botched” abortions he had witnessed as a reason for advocating safe and legal abortions for women, she said.

“Women who are suffering as prostitutes are trapped in an awful life,” Foster said. “Rather than asking ‘How can we free them from this life?’ [activists like Nathanson] say we should give them condoms and free health care. Instead, we should be looking at holistic solutions, so we can find out why they are having abortions.”

Domestic violence and desperation often lead women to unsafe abortion clinics, Foster said. Furthermore, societal pressures, such as a perceived need to “fulfill everybody else’s expectations,” also drive women to choose abortions, she added.

“There are 50 million children we will never know in this country,” Foster said. “We mourn with women who swallowed a bitter pill called choice. The terminated child left them with an empty womb and an empty heart, and for many, they got back to the same old violent husband.”

Foster also challenged attorney Sarah Weddington’s defense of Jane Roe in the landmark Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade. Foster said Weddington’s argument — that women cannot complete their education if they have a child — “undermines” the capabilities of women.

Feminists for Life works to provide women with resources to pursue education and careers without “sacrificing the unplanned joy” of motherhood, according to Foster.

The “inconvenience” of motherhood often results in a lack of support from society and women’s employers, Foster said, posing difficulties for those seeking maternity leave.

For professors on tenure track or college students seeking part-time or academic leave, this poses additional problems, according to Foster.

“You have to ask, what choice do you have here?” Foster said. “Do you have housing? Childcare?”

Feminists for Life works to “systematically eliminate the root causes that drive women to abortion,” Foster said. The organization works on three levels — policy, campus-level and celebrity advocacy, according to a brochure provided by the organization at th event.

“We need to do something to change society’s view on abortion,” Foster said. “We need to make it unthinkable, beyond illegal.”

On the campus level, the organization addresses the needs of birth parents, faculty, administrators and staff, Foster said.

Feminists for Life representatives point students towards available resources, establish support groups and spaces on campus for parents and pregnant women and support the academic and career goals of college faculty and students on and off campus, Foster said in an interview with The Dartmouth.

Anna Niedbala ’12, treasurer of pro-life student organization Vita Clamantis, said she agreed with Foster’s argument.

“I think she sends an important message about kinds of accommodation that could and should be made for women so they don’t have to choose between opportunities and having a child,” Niedbala said in an interview with The Dartmouth. “Maybe this can help Dartmouth think about what we can do for women so abortion isn’t the only option they feel they have. We don’t want to condemn these women but maybe change the reasons why they would seek an abortion in the first place.”

Nelly Cubahiro ’13 said she disagreed with Foster’s interchangeable use of the terms “fetus” and “baby,” as well as her focus on long-term policy rather than short-term solutions, such as expanded birth control and contraceptive techniques.

Although I’ve been a member of FFL and still support the organization, Foster’s arguments present an idealized view of women that is a nineteenth century holdover.

Way back when the feminists like Anthony and Stanton made the argument that if women could abstain from sex in marriage or have reliable family planning, if they could have jobs that would support themselves and their children, if children out of wedlock were entitled to paternal support and women were not shamed for giving birth to them, why then they would not resort to abortion, because no woman wanted to have an abortion and do away with her child.

All those things have come true, and there is more abortion than ever. Some women are conflicted and grieving about abortion and for them it is very painful choice that they would not make if they saw a better alternative. Other women are completely indifferent to the child they have conceived, selfish, amoral, and without forethought.

In private the FFL leadership tends to express more conservative opinions - sex belongs in marriage is the big one. And they understand that if you subsidize sex and childbearing out of marriage you will get more of it. But they can’t sell that position on college campuses and they are trying to win the minds of tomorrow’s elite, who lean very much to the liberal side at this age.

Abortion is a reflection that our society has failed to meet the needs of women.

Oh, baloney. Abortion is a reflection of the sinful nature of human beings.

More than 90% of abortions are done for "convenience" meaning there was no rape or incest, the life and health of the mother is not at stake, and birth control did not fail.

Here's a clue to women (and men). If you don't want a kid, learn to use (and then use) birth control properly, or better yet (to avoid STDs as well as pregnancy) don't have sex outside of a committed marriage.

One never knows which hearts are opened, which minds become attuned. Until the school system stopped my visits, I used to give talks to High School students on ‘bring an influential person from the community to speak day’. While I sought to keep the presentations above religious arguments, invariably one or more students would ask the religious questions when Q&A was opened. It told me that young minds are hungry for adults to make the connections between our social issues and God’s teaching. I am confident that some of the young people I spoke with are now pro-life advocates expecting Tennessee legislation to take their beliefs into account when writing state laws governing this slaughterhouse industry.

Some good points there.

I'd just like to add that 54% of women who have abortions report that they are contraceptive users (Link). "Using protection," "having safer sex, "practicing birth control" is really the on-ramp to the 6-lane of unplanned parenthood. And other than the condom, all the other methods actually increase the transmission of disease.

Bottom line, if you can't serenely entertain the probability of baving a baby with this person, do not get involved in a shared experience that includes in its event horizon the ejaculation of 100 million live spermatozoa.

I know we're in agreement here. MEGoody! To the rest, I hope I have made myself clear.

learn to use (and then use) birth control properly

As a society, we have, but the effect has been to increase abortion and other de-civilizing behavior beyond anyone's imagining.

In the incentive "marketplace" of human motivation, contraception functions like a government subsidy on sex outside of marriage (mentioned by someone earlier). It drastically lightens the penalties for the exploitative thinking and reckless behavior that result in "unintended" pregnancies. It also tends to make people's attitude toward pregnancy itself more jaded, diminishing their awareness that it is a condition of joint human and divine origin.

Starting with people who are already on the leading edge of misbehavior, the attitude that believes you can "un-do" a pregnancy increases the abortion rate. "Abortion thinking" then begins to colonize the mainstream population, cheapening its attitude and behavior and increasing its dependence on abortion. This crass thinking took hold especially quickly in a society where the spread of automobile use was already increasing people's physical mobility and reducing their accountability to each other.

The reduction in reverence toward pregnancy made possible laws promoting abortion, such as New York's (1970), within a decade of the approval of Carl Djerassi's estrogen-progesterone pill, followed by Roe vs Wade in 1973.

As part of the same process of de-sacralizing sex, the institution of marriage became devalued—because marriage for many no longer needed to be the main "owner" and protector of sex. More abortion, infidelity, divorce, and even the movement for homosexual "marriage" followed from that.

I'd just like to add that 54% of women who have abortions report that they are contraceptive users (Link).

Then only three things can be happening.:

The FDA and DoH are lying about the effectiveness of birth control

The women are lying about using birth control, or

The women (or the men they were with) did not have a clue how to use the birth control correctly.

It could be a combination of all three.

So, if birth control is truly that ineffective or people are just too stupid to use it right, then the only proper thing to do is to abstain from sex if you don't want to have a child.

Abstinence is truly the only safe sex.

From your link:

CONTRACEPTIVE USE

Fifty-four percent of women who have abortions had used a contraceptive method (usually the condom or the pill) during the month they became pregnant. Among those women, 76% of pill users and 49% of condom users report having used their method inconsistently, while 13% of pill users and 14% of condom users report correct use.[8]

Forty-six percent of women who have abortions had not used a contraceptive method during the month they became pregnant. Of these women, 33% had perceived themselves to be at low risk for pregnancy, 32% had had concerns about contraceptive methods, 26% had had unexpected sex and 1% had been forced to have sex.[8]

The great majority of women using contraception and having abortions did not use it correctly.

The nitpicker in me says if you're going to fornicate, how does it make it worse to use contraception? and the mathematician says, double up! Use the condom and the pill for a 4 in 10,000 annual chance of pregnancy with perfect use. Our society could cope with that.

But there is still the roughly half of all women who didn't use any contraceptive method...

You are quite right about the large numbers of people using contraceptives incorrectly. Thank you for posting those statistics.

Your "nitpicker" and "mathematician" sides are making perfectly reasonable inferences from pharmacological evidence, but not making reasonable inferences from societal evidence. Your conclusion is obvious, reasoned, and factually incorrect. Why is it not quite so simple? Because contraceptives have had two principal results, one intended and one unintended; and the second is far socially broader, and has overwhelmed the first.

(1) A contraceptive reduces the odds of any particular act of intercourse resulting in pregrancy. But (2)contraceptives have spawned a contraceptive mentality which holds that intercourse, once intended for procreation, and for the renewal of the unique, exclusive marital bond ("I am yours, you are mine") and for pleasure, is now intended for pleasure tout court.

The first (intended) consequence has resulted in fewer births per x number of acts of intercourse, albeit with eventhe Pill having a 9% typical-use "failure" rate (Link)(an offensive term, but its meaning is "pregnancy rate.") The second (unintended) consequence has been a massive increase in the frequency of intercourse between people who are not married to each other, are not building a life together, and/or, even if married, have no intention of having a (or "another") baby together.

Altogether, as I said, around 50% of unplanned pregnancies occur to women who are using contraceptives (that includes the Pill, condoms, jellies, jams, and sprays), and (as you correctly said) maybe 3/4 of them use them only intermittently or incorrectly, but nearly 100% of these women are surprised, affronted, feel angry, betrayed, etc. by the now-shocking fact that sex led to pregnancy.

Why shocking?

Not because of what the contraceptive did (or didn't do) to their fertility, but because of what contraceptives did to their attitude.

This number is greater than the number of men who feel that way, because increasingly, men don't think about it at all. ("Pregnancy? Well, whatever. That's her problem.")

This leads to promiscuity, divorces, abortion, female cynicism, male callousness, plenty of disappointment all around, etc. But the real problem isn't "partially ineffective contraception" or even "partial-birth abortion." The real problem is partial-love intercourse. The Pills (and the other anti-fertility "fixes") are the paraphernalia of the Sexual Revolution. What you see around you now are the casualties.

I remember discussing the issue with my brother once. His take was that abortion used as birth control was immoral, but that if you did use contraception and it failed, you had a contract (with what? fate? the universe?) that entitled you to your intended result, no pregnancy and offspring, and that then it was moral to have an abortion.

It is possible to use contraception, at least methods that are non-abortifacient, while remaining cognizant that any act of sexual intercourse can lead to conception and being ready to welcome and love an unintended child.

To believe and behave as you described is also quite possible and has indeed become the mindset of many people.

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