Pro-life Feminism

Many present day feminists claim that being pro-choice is being pro-women. According to them, abortion allows a woman to have control over her life. This was not the view of abortion held by some of the earliest active feminists including Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Yesterday, I visited the birthplace of Susan B. Anthony with four other interns. During the tour, we learned a lot about how evil she believed abortion to be. Although she never publicly, explicitly stated her official opinion on abortion, she allowed others to publish in the newspaper she owned pieces which condemned abortion, and she did not allow her newspaper to post advertisements for abortions. Her newspaper, The Revolution, published this statement by Mary Wollstonecraft, “Women becoming, consequently, weaker...than they ought to be...have not sufficient strength to discharge the first duty of a mother; and sacrificing to lasciviousness the parental affection...either destroy the embryo in the womb, or cast if off when born. Nature in every thing demands respect, and those who violate her laws seldom violate them with impunity.”
In a speech on “Social Purity” she gave in Chicago in 1875 she said, “When the mother of Christ shall be made the true model of womanhood and motherhood, when the office of maternity shall be held sacred and the mother shall consecrate herself, as did Mary, to the idea of bringing forth the Christ-child, then, and not till then, will the earth see a new order of men and women prone to good rather than evil.” It is clear from her diary as well that Susan B. Anthony considered abortion evil. One of her entries condemns her sister-in-law for doing a self-induced abortion. The early feminists considered abortion to be so immoral and contrary to the laws of nature that they saw it as a result of and proof of the inferior, degrading position women held in society. In September of 1869, The Revolution contained an essay by Mattie Brinkerhoff which stated in reference to abortion, “When a man steals to satisfy hunger, we may safely conclude that there is something wrong in society - so when a woman destroys the life of her unborn child, it is an evidence that either by education or circumstances she has been greatly wronged." Not only did they consider it evil, but they also saw it as halting progress in the women’s movement for equality. They believed that abortionists twisted the real aim of the women’s suffrage movement to make it seem that women wanted to dominate men rather than gain equality with them.