Can you be a feminist and pro-life?

[Chris]

Of course, you can.

Can you be a feminist and pro-life?

Fiorella Nash, a writer and bioethicist who has spent over ten years researching pro-life and pro-woman issues from a feminist perspective, has written a hard-hitting book which should be read by every woman who calls herself a feminist. Titled The Abolition of Woman: How Radical Feminism is Betraying Women (Ignatius Press), it analyses every form of female exploitation and rebuts the dishonest arguments used to bolster them – whether it is abortion, forced sterilisation, gendercide, reproduction that is outsourced to impoverished Third World women or prostitution.

I ask Fiorella why she calls herself a “pro-life feminist”. Isn’t this a contradiction in terms? She agrees that she would have thought so when she first came across the term. Indeed, she had once denounced contemporary feminism – only for a reader to send her a book of essays on pro-life feminism “which radically challenged my attitudes and convinced me that there is such a thing as pro-life feminism.”

Warming to her theme, she argues that “authentic feminism should be pro-life. It grew out of a rejection of the idea that women are the property of men; by what justification therefore, can we treat our own offspring as property? No movement that truly believes in justice and equality seeks to achieve those goals through the sacrifice of innocent lives.”

...

[Ethereal]

Margaret Sanger, despite what many say about her, was "pro-life" insofar as she was opposed to abortion.

[midcan5]

Of course you can, assuming only these narrow defining choices is a sign of an ideologue or a doofus. I actually know women who are pro life and have had an abortion. Some have had their children and contributed to human evolution already. Others make the decision not to have a child based on health and other complicated issues. Americans today are too well trained emotionally it seems to realize life is complicated and their opinions are not always the values of another human being. Consider birth defects and other potential defects for instance. And then there are two categories even I find unusual, one doesn't want the burden, the other thinks the world sucks, so why bother. To each her own.

http://harpers.org/archive/1987/10/w...-nurses-story/

"Abolition of a woman's right to abortion, when and if she wants it, amounts to compulsory maternity: a form of rape by the State." Edward Abbey

Before Roe v Wade: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/19/u...-wade-nyt.html

One woman's: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine...ortion/304930/

[IMPress Polly]

I wouldn't go so far as to say that there's no such thing as an anti-abortion feminist (especially given the history of the movement on the issue), but I would say that more serious feminists are pro-choice. I think you will find that opponents of abortion rights also demonstrate contempt for the bodily autonomy of women in other ways, and I don't believe that as much is coincidental. Show me an anti-abortion activist who also say supports birth control and the Me Too movement and believes divorce to be acceptable and I will show you an exception to the rule I have just pointed to, but I think you will find those exceptions to be just that: exceptions, not the rule.

The Catholic Church is perhaps the most politically vocal institution opposing abortion on Earth. The Catholic Church also bans women from priesthood, believes that birth control should be outlawed, and broadly opposes everything from divorce to child adoption to (oh the cruel, cruel irony of this one!) same-sex relationships. They are not feminists.

[Standing Wolf]

Margaret Sanger, despite what many say about her, was "pro-life" insofar as she was opposed to abortion.

The only situation worse than abortion being necessary for some women would be for it not to be legally available. Anti-choice activists often point to organizations like Planned Parenthood and their statements about how many procedures they were able to perform as though it were a case of them "gloating" about it; it isn't that at all, of course, but simply a matter of celebrating the fact that the anti-choice forces of self righteousness and intolerance haven't shut them down. I have known women who were staunchly pro-choice, but I know for a fact that if they'd found themselves to be pregnant they would have had a child regardless of any impediment or inconvenience; some did exactly that. Not because they had to, but because they wanted and chose to.

[Standing Wolf]

I think you will find that opponents of abortion rights also demonstrate contempt for the bodily autonomy of women in other ways, and I don't believe that as much is coincidental. Show me an anti-abortion activist who also say supports birth control and the Me Too movement and believes divorce to be acceptable and I will show you an exception to the rule I have just pointed to, but I think you will find those exceptions to be just that: exceptions, not the rule.

That is a fair assessment.

[Chris]

I wouldn't go so far as to say that there's no such thing as an anti-abortion feminist (especially given the history of the movement on the issue), but I would say that more serious feminists are pro-choice. I think you will find that opponents of abortion rights also demonstrate contempt for the bodily autonomy of women in other ways, and I don't believe that as much is coincidental. Show me an anti-abortion activist who also say supports birth control and the Me Too movement and believes divorce to be acceptable and I will show you an exception to the rule I have just pointed to, but I think you will find those exceptions to be just that: exceptions, not the rule.

The Catholic Church is perhaps the most politically vocal institution opposing abortion on Earth. The Catholic Church also bans women from priesthood, believes that birth control should be outlawed, and broadly opposes everything from divorce to child adoption to (oh the cruel, cruel irony of this one!) same-sex relationships. They are not feminists.

Nice no true Scottmans argument, just instead of "true" you use "serious."

Did the OP woman "demonstrate contempt for the bodily autonomy of women in other ways"? Can you point that out?

[Chris]

The only situation worse than abortion being necessary for some women would be for it not to be legally available. Anti-choice activists often point to organizations like Planned Parenthood and their statements about how many procedures they were able to perform as though it were a case of them "gloating" about it; it isn't that at all, of course, but simply a matter of celebrating the fact that the anti-choice forces of self righteousness and intolerance haven't shut them down. I have known women who were staunchly pro-choice, but I know for a fact that if they'd found themselves to be pregnant they would have had a child regardless of any impediment or inconvenience; some did exactly that. Not because they had to, but because they wanted and chose to.

The only situation worse than abortion being necessary for some women would be for it not to be legally available.

Why is that? Why should the government pick sides and support that?

[Standing Wolf]

Why is that? Why should the government pick sides and support that?

Are you asking me why the government needs to become involved when if it did not a doctor in Mississippi or Kansas could be sent to prison for performing an operation that a simple majority of the people in that town considered to be a crime?

[IMPress Polly]

I would ask a further question of our abortion opponents: are there any limits to the tactics that you would support to deny women the right to terminate a pregnancy? For example, many states have de-funded Planned Parenthood because they provide abortion services (without using state money to do so), but those same states typically fund FAKE abortion clinics called "crisis pregnancy centers" run by Christian organizations that are designed to trick women into believing they'll receive a service that they don't actually provide. Fake clinics may even be given more in public money than real providers like Planned Parenthood are at this point. There are now three fake abortion clinics in America for every real one. Do our moralists find these fake clinics, and the fact that they rely on public, taxpayer money for their existence and receive it abundantly, objectionable on any level?