From: dholtsin@nyx.cs.du.edu (Doug Holtsinger)
Subject: Pro-life feminism
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Date: Sun, 30 Aug 92 00:51:28 GMT

Re-post from soc.feminism.


--- begin re-posted article ----
From: dsh@csl36h.csl.ncsu.EDU (Doug Holtsinger)
Subject: Feminists for Life of America article
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Reply-To: Doug Holtsinger <dsh@csl36h.csl.ncsu.EDU>
Date: 7 Jul 92 18:11:47 GMT
Followup-To: poster

[Moderator's Note: Posting of this article was delayed for several
reasons.  It is a highly controversial and inflammatory article
despite its apparent "dispassionate" tone.  It does not technically
violate the letter of the guidelines for submission, but we feel that
it twists the spirit of those guidelines rather badly because it is
replete with generalizations and sweeping "this is the way it is"
statements.  Followups to this article WILL NOT BE POSTED.  In fact,
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instead.  Information about FFL is now included in one of the FAQ's
for this group, and it is unlikely that further posts about FFL will
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--CTM]

Feminists for Life of America
Abortion does not liberate women

  Most modern feminists have made easy access to abortion the very
symbol of the liberation of women. The literature of the National
Organization for Women repeatedly refers to abortion as the ``the most
fundamental right of women''--more important than even the right to
vote and the right to free speech. NOW has designated the protection
of abortion rights as its top priority.

  This is ironic, because abortion does not liberate women. On the
contrary, abortion--and the perceived need for it--validate the
patriarchal world view which holds that women, encumbered as they are
by their reproductive capacity, are inferior to men.

  Abortion liberates men, not women. There are three reasons for this:

      "Feminism is part of a larger philosophy that values all life."

  Truly liberated women reject abortion because they reject the male
world view that accepts violence as a legitimate solution to conflict.
Rather than settling for mere equality--the right to contribute
equally to the evil of the world--prolife feminists seek to transform
society to create a world that reflects true feminist ideals.

  Feminism is, properly, part of a larger philosophy that values all
life. Feminists believe that all human beings have inherent worth and
that this worth cannot be conferred, or denied by another. True
feminist thinking recognizes the interdependence of all living things
and the new responsibility we all have for one another. This feminism
rejects the male view that sees individuals as functioning separately
from their fellows, in mutual cooperation.

  Abortion is incompatible with this feminist vision. Abortion
atomizes women. It pits them against their own children as competitors
for the favors of the patriarchy. Abortion is of great benefit to
employers who do not have to make concessions to pregnant women and
mothers, to schools which do not have to commit themselves to their
mates or their children. Women who accept abortion have agreed to
sacrifice their children for the convenience of a man's world.

  Women who have been liberated from male thought patterns refuse to
participate in their own oppression and in the oppression of their
children. They refuse to accept abortion, which denigrates the life-
giving capacity of women. They strive instead to create a world that
recognizes the moral superiority of maternal thinking and is,
therefore, gentle, living, nurturing. and pro-life. Every abortion
frustrates this goal and perpetuates the patriarchy. Liberated women
will not cooperate.  They refuse abortion and all it represents.

  Efforts to establish abortion as a legitimate solution to the
problems of being a woman in a male-dominated society surrender women
to pregnancy discrimination. Those feminists who demand the right to
abortion concede the notion that a pregnant woman is inferior to a
non-pregnant one. They admit that pregnancy and motherhood are
incompatible to being a fully functioning adult, and that an
unencumbered, unattached male is the model for success. By settling
for abortion instead of working for the social changes that would make
it possible to combine children and career, pro-abortion feminists
have agreed to participate in a man's world under a man's terms. They
have betrayed the majority of working women-- women who want to have
children.

  Abortion allows men to escape responsibility for their own sexual
behavior. A man whose child is aborted is relieved of the requirement
that he support his children. It is not surprising that the Playboy
Foundation is a major supporter of abortion rights, because abortion
is a natural consequence of the Playboy's ideal of uncommitted,
anonymous sex without consequences. Women can be reduced to the status
of a consumer item, which if ``broken'' by pregnancy can be ``fixed''
by abortion.

  Proabortion feminists have corrupted feminism by embracing male
standards, which hold that it is permissible to treat ``unequals''
unequally, and for the powerful to oppress the weak. By accepting this
patriarchal world view, these feminists have capitulated to male
dominance. Women who agree to conform to the ideal of a world made by
and for men are not liberated; they have merely altered their roles
within the patriarchy.

Feminists for Life of America
811 East 47th Street
Kansas City, Missouri 64110

Taken from: _The Abortion Debate in the United States and Canada_,
Maureen Muldoon, Garland Publishing, 1991