Foster said Feminists for Life, based in Washington, has 5,000 members. Ironically, it was formed by members of the National Organization for Women who broke with the group in 1972 because of its pro-abortion stand. She expends most of her effort on college campuses trying to build resources that will make it easier for a woman with a child to stay in school and arguing against the view that abortion liberates women. Those who benefit most from abortion, she said in a recent talk at Washington University in St. Louis, are not women but men and society at large, because both are freed of the responsibilities of caring for children. Supporters of abortion often believe that it frees women to compete with men in the working world, she said, when they should be insisting that institutions be more accommodating to women with children.
Abortion is proposed as a solution.
The choice to have children is not acceptable if a woman is of college age. But attitudes are gradually changing, Foster said. She noted that the percentage of young women who believe abortion should be legal has fallen off considerably in the past few years. According to an annual study by the University of California Los Angeles, support for legalized abortion among young women entering college dropped from a high of 65.5 percent in 1989 to 49.5 percent in 1998. The shift has abortion rights activists deeply concerned.