A couple decades ago, the ardently pro-choice Clinton administration said they wanted abortions to be “safe, legal, and rare.” President Obama repeated the same mantra, calling it “the right formulation” on abortion. While pro-lifers adamantly disagree with the “legal” part, there has been at least the pretense of some common ground—we could all agree that we wanted to live in a world where the underlying reasons why women seek out abortions were eliminated.
But today, that “safe, legal, and rare” rhetoric is slipping fast, exposing a new and ugly face of women’s rights. With movements like #ShoutYourAbortion trending in social media, abortion is not something we should avoid unless “necessary,” but something that should be normalized and celebrated—putting an end to the feelings of sadness, shame, and regret that comes with the procedure.
To Be Pro-Woman is to Be Pro-Life
Without exception, the earliest feminists were ardently pro-life.
Women had a steep uphill climb when it came to equal rights in the 19th and early 20th centuries. They were not allowed to vote, sit on a jury, hold property, testify on their behalf in a court of law, or control their own money. Other rights and privileges were also very limited. And yet despite all these energy-consuming causes, feminists also took a stand against abortion.
Women’s suffrage advocates like Mary Wollstonecraft, Elizabeth Blackwell, Sarah Norton, Victoria Woodhull, Tennessee Claflin, and Elizabeth Stanton were all pro-life. They all believed abortion was the sign of a sick society that did not care for its women. As one passage in Susan B. Anthony’s newspaper stated:
It [abortion] will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; but oh, thrice guilty is he who drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime!
As the modern group Feminists For Life often say, “Women deserve better than abortion.”
When a woman lives in a world where, by her circumstances or beliefs, she feels an abortion is the best option for her unborn baby, that woman has, in some way, been wronged.
When a woman is despised by others for her single motherhood, she is wronged.
When a woman believes giving birth will inevitably plunge her into deeper poverty, she has been wronged.
When a woman is raised to believe abortion is a means of “liberation” from the oppression of raising a child, she has been wronged.
When a woman would rather choose death for her child before turning it over to an adoption system, she has been wronged.
When women fear raising their children in a fatherless environment, they have been wronged.
When the children of rape are constantly told we should have the right to kill them for their father’s sins, they are wronged. When women are raped and told they will never see past the crime to see the beautiful humanity of their child, they are doubly wronged.
When women are told they need “relief” from their pregnancy rather than relief from the injustices that make childbearing too hard, they are wronged.
Abortion solves nothing, and the earliest feminist understood this. It is, at best, a Band-Aid® solution for hemorrhaging injustices done against women. When women swallow the convenient pill called “choice,” they not only do violence to the life inside them, they show evidence of living in a world where they are convinced (sometimes for convincing reasons) they have to choose between giving birth and survival—between life and achieving their dreams.
The early feminists wanted to create a world where no woman ever had to choose between “What about me?” and “What about my baby?”
To Be Pro-Woman is to Be Pro-Human (Even Little Humans)
Women in the 19th century knew what it was like to be an oppressed and defenseless class of human beings, so it made all the sense in the world to be anti-abortion—fighting for the rights of yet another defenseless group. It’s the same reason early feminists were also abolitionists. The earliest feminists could clearly see abortion betrayed the feminist principles of nondiscrimination, nonviolence, and justice for all.
As women’s suffrage leader Elizabeth Cady Stanton said,
When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit.
This logic is sadly lost on most liberals today—but not all of them. As the American Feminist magazine rightly says: We believe in a woman’s right to control her body, and she deserves this right no matter where she lives, even if she’s still living inside her mother’s womb.
The late Bob Casey, former Democratic governor of Pennsylvania—and a staunch advocate of liberal politics—said he believed there were two significant times in American history when the law “excluded an entire class of people from their most sacred human rights.” The first was the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision when both slave and free blacks were told they were property. The second time, said Governor Casey, was Roe v. Wade: “An entire class of human beings was excluded from the protection of the law, their fate declared a private matter.”
American historian Nat Hentoff, himself an atheist, left-wing civil libertarian, knows the science behind this is fairly plain. Any obstetrician will tell you when a pregnant woman enters your office, you’re dealing with two patients, not just one. The fetus in the womb embodies continually developing human life—genetically human in every way. “Whether the life is cut off in the fourth week or the fourteenth,” says Hentoff, “the victim is one of our species, and has been from the start.”
Women’s Rights Gone Wrong
So, what happened that brought about such a radical shift in attitudes about abortion?
Somewhere along the way, those pushing for women’s rights lowered the bar—tragically low. They stopped believing we need to change society to accommodate mothers and started thinking about it the other way around.
Without a doubt the eugenics movement—advocating population control for undesirable and poorer classes—was a major player. In the mid-50s, the American Eugenics Society included many cultural leaders like philosopher Joseph Fletcher, geneticist H. Bentley Glass, social scientist Kingsley Davis, physician Alan Guttmacher, and of course birth-control leader Margaret Sanger. On one level it made sense: isn’t death before birth a preferable fate to life in the slums or dying of starvation?
But instead of saying the enemy of big, poor families was poverty and the social injustices that caused poverty, they argued the enemy was the pregnancy itself.
In the 60s and 70s, Lawrence Lader, one of the founders of the abortion-rights group NARAL, himself a big believer in eugenics, traveled the country hoping to get legislators to repeal anti-abortion laws. When this didn’t work, he approached feminist leaders. He reasoned, if a woman wanted to finally be hired like a man, get promotions like a man, be educated like a man, then women should not expect employers to accommodate motherhood. Sadly, many of them bought this hook, line, and sinker.
Roe v. Wade attorney Sarah Weddington used the very same arguments before the Supreme Court. Pregnant women faced various injustices in the workplace and at school—not to mention situations of poverty and abuse—but she did not suggest that these injustices be solved. She demanded, instead, that women need “relief” from their pregnancies instead of demanding they need relief from these injustices. This stance undermines the very support women deserve.
Departurism: A Refreshing Stance
“My body, my choice,” has been a motto of the pro-choice camp for years.
It’s a motto based squarely on the idea of property rights: you own your own body, so no one should have the right to tell you what you can do with it.
Pro-lifers can affirm that motto, with one simple stipulation: you only have the right to remove, not to kill.
Libertarian author Sean Parr calls this view “departurism.” It’s a view that affirms: yes, as a woman, your body is your own, and a fetus in your womb is a trespassing; you have the right to remove the fetus. But you do not have the right to kill the fetus which is, after all, a living human being with the right to his or her own body. Furthermore, in keeping the principle of non-aggression, the mother also must recognize that the fetus, from the first second of its life, is in the process of leaving her premises: gestation is, by definition, temporary, and the goal of gestation is life outside the womb.
In other words, the only legal “abortion” that should exist is a delivery—where both her and the baby’s lives are kept in mind.
The New Face of Women’s Rights
Years ago, and even still today, at least some pro-choice advocates couch abortion as a moral dilemma. The “safe, legal, and rare” rhetoric is part of this stream of thought. In life, they argue, hard choices must be made, and there are times when one moral value must trump another.
Twenty years ago noted feminist Naomi Wolf urged her fellow pro-choice readers to again speak of abortion in life-and-death terms:
Clinging to a rhetoric about abortion in which there is no life and no death, we entangle our beliefs in a series of self-delusions, fibs and evasions. And we risk becoming precisely what our critics charge us with being: callous, selfish and casually destructive men and women who share a cheapened view of human life.
…we need to contextualise the fight to defend abortion rights within a moral framework that admits that the death of a foetus is a real death: that there are degrees of culpability, judgment and responsibility involved in the decision to abort a pregnancy; that the best understanding of feminism involves holding women as well as men to the responsibilities that are inseparable from their rights; and that we need to be strong enough to acknowledge that America’s high rate of abortion—which ends more than a quarter of all pregnancies—can only be rightly understood as a failure.
Wolf, being pro-choice, makes a significant departure from her feminist foremothers, but she at least recognizes the hypocrisy of a women’s rights movement that refuses to be confronted with the obvious fact that life in the womb is human life. When a woman makes a decision to have an abortion, she is not merely making a personal decision, but a grave life-and-death decision of conscience.
But today we are met with the scary, brazen face of women’s rights in trends like #ShoutYourAbortion. As abortion stories explode on social media, it becomes clear we aren’t in Kansas anymore.
Jessica Valenti, founder of Feministing.com, wants to see the “rare” dropped from the “safe, legal, and rare” rhetoric. Why? First because it makes pro-choice legislation notoriously more difficult to pass, and second because it gives the implication “there’s something morally wrong with the procedure.”
Perhaps this is the inevitable slippery slope of abortion rights. Perhaps it is simply too difficult for human beings to stand on some utilitarian middle ground, seeing a fetus as something with value, an interdependent life within a life, and yet a life that, at times, ought to end for another greater good. Admittedly, as a pro-life Christian that sees all human beings created in the image of God, even if I abandoned my faith some day, I would likely miss simplicity of my former position.
And that is one reason why the new face of women’s rights is so appealing: it is utterly simple. We don’t have to waste time trying to weigh the pros and cons of these choices if abortion is simply never wrong.
But in doing so, we not only claim the law should refuse protection to the most weak and defenseless among us, we also turn a blind eye to the fact that how society treats its mothers is, in some sense, a litmus test for society’s conscience. When we train mothers and would-be-mothers in our midst to believe that children are the enemy to an otherwise fulfilling life, we show a profound kind of callousness that would have made our feminist foremothers gag.
The free-market language we use to speak of abortion has led us to this sad state, where children are nothing more than the accessories to parental life.
Fantastic post!
Thanks, Marie!
Thank you for this thorough description of the journey from pro-life/pro-women’s rights pioneers to #shoutyourabortion. I believe we are seeing what happens when we are under judgement (Romans 1). We (our culture) has failed to honor God, instead they serve self, technology, etc. We see active rebellion against God’s design for male/female and family. Now we see people given over to their desire to be without gender, without sexual limitation, and they have widespread approval! Basic biology, and God’s beautiful plan for women to be carriers of His image bearers (so they can bring Him praise), is despised by these people. May he have mercy on our people!
Thanks. Glad you enjoyed the article!
Well said. I will share this so it gets out to more women.
Thanks, Phyllis!
What a bullshit post.
Quoting the beliefs and opinions of the earliest feminist does not bolster your argument , those same feminists excluded women of color and committed other acts of oppression that diminish their validity in modern feminist contexts.
Shout your abortion is not about being proud of abortion, it is about eliminating the silence, shame, and stigma that stupid writers like you would rather perpetuate.
Wow. Interesting take on things, but you’re mistaken. Many early suffrage leaders also championed black equality, especially the abolition of slavery. Many early suffragettes were black (Sojourner Truth, Margaretta Forten, Harriet Forten Purvis, and Mary Ann Shadd Cary to name a few). They wanted to see both the rights of blacks and the rights of women championed at the same time. But they also knew sexism was just as alive and well in African American communities as it was in white communities, and they didn’t want to see blacks getting the right to vote become a deterrence to the overall cause of women’s rights—only adding more fuel to misogyny. Of course, you had your more blatantly racist suffragettes in there, too: Carrie Chapman Catt, Frances Willard, Belle Kearney, etc., but of course I didn’t mention those women in my article.
As for your take on #ShoutYourAbortion, I respectfully disagree. To eliminate the shame and stigma of abortion is suggest nothing is wrong with it in the first place. To encourage others to shout it out is to encourage pride in it. How could it be interpreted any other way? If I started a campaign called #ShoutYourMisogyny, asking men to tell stories about how they showed their hatred of women, I would rightly be interpreted not just as eliminating a social taboo but as encouraging men to take pride in sexual discrimination and belittling women.
Wow, this is the best post I’ve read about this awful hashtag. It’s intelligent, factual and I love that you didn’t attack pro-abortionists. I was at a loss for words when I saw this trending. I thought it had to be fake. When I realized it was real, I was distraught. I wanted to talk some sense into these women. I wanted to tell them how they have believed a lie for so long. But I must admit I didn’t even try, I thought there was no hope for them to ever see the beauty of the gift of children. But at least if one of these women are reached either thru this post or a pro life message, then it’s worth it. Thank you for saying what I’ve been trying to say for awhile now…but you said it much much better. ?
Glad you liked it, Michelle. I didn’t want this post to be about the pro-life/pro-choice debate directly, but about how I see pro-choice rhetoric slipping into something very ugly. I know a number of pro-choice people (who differ with me on the legal question of abortion) who think the #ShoutYourAbortion trend is stupid and dangerous. While they want abortion to remain legal, they at least understand that abortion ought to be seen as a moral dilemma—something we shouldn’t prefer as a society. I wanted to write something that really spoke to those of a more liberal political mindset.
Dear Luke,
I admire the work and the amount of research you have put into this article. Further more, I admire you for teaching your sons to respect women and treat them right. I do. But here my agreement with you stops.
How do you think you can decide whether the woman, who was raped, should give birth to the child of rape? You are talking about the fetus. What if you tried to see woman’s point of view? She was violated emotionally and physically, her life was broken. And here you say that she has to drop all her dreams if any left in order to give birth and take care of the child she will never forget conceiving? Talk to sexually abused people, feel what they feel. Not being a woman you cannot even comprehend the tragedy of the situation. You just cannot, no matter what argument you make. You can’t!
Now, another scenario: a young girl becomes pregnant. She has all her life in front of her, dreams, education… She is alone (as men usually disappear after pregnancy news). She has a choice – to give birth and have a low paid job until the rest of her life or try to get a better life. You will tell me a lot of women study and work and have kids and are single, but it is not true. You cannot even imagine the difficulty of the situation. Even if you are a wonderful husband and a father, not in this reality, where women take care of kids, house, life, etc and many men are just couch potatoes (it is if she has one).
You wrote a lot of facts, a lot of words. But with all do respect you did not grasp and represent a perspective of a woman, because you are not one. Maybe, if you put all your energy into educating men about fair treatment of women, make government support women, and fix overall situation in the world I will get back to this conversation with you. but for now, no uterus, no opinion. Sorry. You are not the one to carry all the responsibility, you are not to decide.
P.S. I am married, have two kids (planned), never done abortions, would probably not consider one myself. But I truly believe that every woman has the right to decide, and nobody can take this away from her.
Hey there, Julia.
I don’t for a minute think I should be the one to decide whether a raped woman should be allowed to kill her baby. That is a matter for the state to decide, not a lone individual like myself, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
As for the trauma of her rape, I certainly don’t deny the injustice and extreme pain of these situations. Knowing quite a few women who’ve been raped, I can imagine it is an atrocity that is beyond horrific. But I really do fail to see why a baby should be killed for its father’s crime, and so far, I’ve never been given a reason why this should be. Perhaps you have one I could consider.
This really comes down to whether you see a child conceived in an act of abuse as a unique human individual—a life within a life—who deserves protection by the state. If not, then we should also have the right to kill infants who are products of rape, 3 year olds who are products of rape, or any other age you can imagine. Why? Because anyone can use the trauma argument as a justification for killing someone: “Every time I see my child, I remember my rapist.” Should someone have these kind of carte blanche rights to kill their own children if they are psychologically harmful?
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not suggesting this kind of stuff is some sort of ethical cake walk. I’m just saying the human beings—especially the most defenseless human beings among us—deserve equal protection under the law, no matter who their father is.
Also, to suggest that my gender makes me unqualified to speak about this issue is rather sexist, but not surprising because I hear it a lot. The problem with your comment is I’m merely echoing the thoughts of pro-life women—in fact, its the whole premise of my article. Could you so easily dismiss my arguments if they were spoken by a woman who had been raped? Do her experiences or her biology suddenly make these arguments any more philosophically sound? (They might, of course, make them more persuasive, but not more sound.)
If a man comes up to a pregnant woman, shoots her point-blank in the belly, killing her child, should the state have the right to press charges for murder (like they currently do in many states)? If so, what makes a woman’s choice to effectively do the same thing to her child a private matter? We can’t say it is because its her body, because then the state would only be able to press charges for harms done to her, not the death of the baby. Why does the state have an interest in the killing of a baby in utero when done at the hands of a gunman but not when done at the hands of the the baby’s mother?
Please understand where I’m coming from, Julia. These are not just the rantings of an aloof male. These are honest questions many have given to the pro-choice community, and to my knowledge, they have never been satisfactorily answered.
Dear Luke,
I am not trying to be offensive, or attack you personally. But you have to understand that when we are talking about issues like this, we are crossing to the uncharted territory. You are not the one to decide, but you, me, everybody who states their opinion eventually change the world, and if now it is up to the government, tomorrow it might be up to us… I would not change my mind if I heard the woman to talk about this issue. If a woman decides to have a rape child I will stand in line to hug her and tell her how brave she is. BUT I want her to have a choice! And regarding killing rape children of any age – if a woman made a choice to have a child – a child is her responsibility! But I am sure if she made a choice she already knows that.
Why don’t we start punishing doctors performing IVF for not using all the viable embryos? By your definition embryo is a human being and not using it means killing a human.
This article is a good pick of exempts supporting your point of view. It does not echo thoughts of all women, no does it provide a clear picture of what exactly women’s rights advocates were thinking about. If you dig dipper you will find statistics on illegal abortions performed in those times, deaths from them, and suicide rates (Statistics will probably be not complete, considering a lot of cases just went without registering…). Are you ready to see deaths from illegal abortions, crippled women, suicide rates soar?
You are not considering human psychology. Even if you remove all obstacles for a pregnant woman, you will not be able to fight that. Some women are just not ready (or will never be) to be mothers. There is a reason for “no abortion after 20 weeks” law. No one can make a woman to have a child!!! If one does so, this becomes an anti-woman thinking. Now, can you take responsibility for suicide of a woman, being forced to have a child? You will have two deaths by your definition. ARE YOU READY FOR THIS?
It is incredibly frustrating to see these issues surface every time the presidential election is coming closer. I am not saying that you are trying to push it, but somehow issues of gay marriage, and abortion come up every time.
If you want to write about ugly face of women’s rights, write about maternity leave (or a lack of) in this reality. Child in Canada – 52 weeks maternity leave, 50 – paid for; five years of payments from the government (appr 150$ a month for child support). Child in the US – nothing. That is a huge problem here!!! Put all your effort, do your research, bring your facts! Fight for this, it is doable. Do not fight for something you will never be able to change or even understand.
P.S. – my last post.
Thanks for the reply, Julia.
You’ve got a lot here so let me see if I can address these questions.
1. I’m trying to reconcile your first comment with your second. Before you said “no uterus, no opinion,” but now you’re saying you would not change your mind if you heard a woman say the same things. I guess I’m not sure what you’re getting at with the whole me being a man thing.
2. Perhaps I’ve overlooked it, but I didn’t see where you answered my chief concern: Why should we punish babies because of who their father is or what their father did?
3. If I understand you correctly, a baby becomes a woman’s responsibility once she chooses to give birth to it, but before that, it isn’t her responsibility—speaking specifically of a rape situation. In other words, it is the choice of the woman made during pregnancy that makes the baby her responsibility. But isn’t this being selective about the legal power of her choices? What about birth makes her choice no longer worth considering? If she chooses to give birth but then later does not want to choose life for her child, why should there be a legal distinction between one choice and the other?
4. Why don’t we start punishing doctors performing IVF for not using all the viable embryos? Good question, Julia. I’m not in favor of dumping embryos either, and I would agree that since I think abortion should be illegal, so should a lot of the IVF practices that compromise the lives of these tiny humans.
5. I never claimed the article echoes the claims of all women. In fact, I site several examples of women in the article who would disagree with me: Naomi Wolf, Hillary Clinton, Margaret Sanger, etc.
6. I too am concerned about botched back alley abortions and suicide rates. But so were the early feminists. Abortions were common in the 1800s and early 1900s, but not a single early feminist for the first 100 years of women’s suffrage thought making abortions legal was the answer to this. This is the whole point of the article: early feminists knew that women deserve better than abortion. When a woman feels abortion is her best coarse of action, she has been wronged, and it is those wrongs that must be remedied—not her pregnancy.
7. I also understand there are many women who are not ready to be mothers, but I hardly see why killing babies is the answer to non-readiness. I baffles me that despite both sides of this debate recognizing the burden of carrying a child that there are people who think death is a preferable option. Adoption, on the other hand, is a wonderful option for these women.
8. To suggest that women not be allowed to kill the lives inside them is “anti-woman” sounds very odd to me. That would be like saying telling a woman not to kill her 3-year-old child is anti-woman. No. The state tells her not to kill her kids (whether they are in the uterus or out) because to do otherwise is anti-human. Furthermore, if there have been over 56 million abortions since Roe v. Wade, and about half of those were female, that means the legalization of abortion has brought about the deaths of about 28 million little women. So, no: preventing massive, legally-sanctioned killings of women is hardly anti-woman.
9. As for the suicide problem, I won’t pretend that isn’t a horrendous reality, but I also fail to see why that tips the scales for the pro-choice cause. Would it be a terrible thing if a woman felt forced to carry the baby in her womb and killed herself? Yes. Does that mean it should be legal for her to kill her baby? Of course not. Why?
a. Things can be done to alleviate the underlying reasons why these women find pregnancy so burdensome.
b. Even if some women still sadly choose suicide, did the rate of suicide in women pre-Roe v. Wade come anywhere even a fraction close to the tens of millions of babies who have died since then?
c. Several studies have now shown that women who have abortions are actually several times more likely to commit suicide in the year or years following their abortion than women who deliver a child (depending on the study, 2.5x to 5.9x more likely).
Really, the differences in our opinion comes down to one key distinction: while we both recognize there are injustices in the world that make pregnancy and motherhood unduly burdensome, especially for certain women, you believe a woman should be able to legally kill her baby as a way to alleviate the burden, whereas I believe (1) to do this suggests our society is more interested in quick solutions than actually helping mothers, and (2) to allow this is a price tag on choice that is far too high and has led to tens of millions of deaths.
Hi Julia!
I can so relate to your second scenario. I know first hand what it feel like when the father leaves the scene before said fetus is considered life. I know what it’s like to struggle to make ends meet, wishing for a different set of circumstances…a different life.
But my mother endured. Loving me, never once telling me I was a regret, a wrong decision or a dream-ruiner for her. She made the choice to keep me 5 years after it would have been legal to abort me. We lived a modest life with simple pleasure I grew up loved.
He made the choice to walk away. She made the choice to be a mother none the less. Did she miss college, yes. Did she miss some high-paying job, maybe. What did she gain in return? A daughter that brought her joy like a child does to any other mother.
I do grasp the concept and I have a uterus and I completely agree with Luke. As a woman, a mother, a wife and for a long time, a fatherless child abortion isn’t the answer to the problem it’s a crime against humanity, a cop-out, and an excuse.
Dear Danielle,
I admire your mom! But you said it yourself – SHE MADE THE CHOICE!!! I want that for our children. To have the choice!!!
Hello again, Julia.
There seems to be this odd notion floating around that to be pro-life is to be anti-choice. I think that’s just silly. If being pro-choice on other issues actually meant “pro-all-the-choices” then we would live in a terrible world. Should I have the choice to kill my children? No. But to suggest this be illegal (as you yourself believe) is not to be anti-choice. I believe pregnant women should have choices, but those choices shouldn’t end the life of some other person.
I became a mother when I was a teenager, still in high school, by a man who was a rapist. I worked very hard, two jobs while pregnant and finishing school (I refused to get a GED. I wanted a cap and gown and a diploma).
I am a college educated woman, now married and living out all of the hopes and dreams I had for my future.
Suggesting that this is impossible is ignorant at best, an outright lie in reality.
It infuriates me when I see people suggest that the murder of my firstborn child would have made my life more worth the living. She is the joy of everyone who speaks to her.
Thank you for sharing, Shante.
Sadly, I’ve read stories like yours before and there are many out there who are likely to turn the tables on you, suggesting that by sharing your story, you inadvertently shame those who were raped who made different choices. I, for one, think you should feel very glad for your decision and you should be glad to share that story with others.
Some believe we wrong women who are victims of rape by publicizing stories like yours. I believe we wrong them when we don’t. When women are raped and then told they will never see past the horrific crime to see the beautiful humanity of their child, they are being wronged. Why compound the pain of rape with the lie that a victim must now destroy the innocent life inside her—just because of who the baby’s father is? Why compound the violence done to her by doing violence to her baby?
When a woman becomes pregnant—even and especially when she is raped—she ought to receive full and unqualified support from friends, family, and her community. Sadly, this is not always the case.
Thank you for sharing your story, Shante!
I would just like to state, I am a women. I was raped at the age of 14. I did not become pregnant, however, if I would have, it would not have been the fault of the child. I would have never killed my child for the acts of their father. (If your father raped a woman, should you be murdered for his action?). At the most, I would have put my child up for another family to take in and love.
Second, I also became pregnant at the age of 16. I had many dreams. I wanted to become a vet. My then boyfriend did stick around, and abortion NEVER crossed our minds. We accepted responsibilities for our actions and owned up, and kept our child. I had to give up EVERYTHING I had dreamed of. Complications in my pregnancy made me have to stay out of school my whole 11th grade year. My school work was dropped off and picked up, but I had no assistance in learning. I graduated with honors, however,my senior year I had to take much easier classes, as I hadn’t learned what I needed to the year I was out to proceed with advanced classes. Because of this, and the fact that my then boyfriend had a job where we lived that he truly didn’t want to give up (it wasn’t a high paying job, but he worked for the company his father owned and he will one day inherit) and the college I would be required to attend was 6 hours away and I didn’t want the three of us separated, I gave up that dream. 6 years later, I am happily married to that same man, and the mother to two additional children. I am a stay at home mom currently and I wouldn’t change a single thing. God had a different plan than I and He knew what was right for us!
Our daughter was not a mistake or accident. She was planned by a wonderful Father above, who knew she was perfect for us. I would never change a single moment. Don’t get me wrong, we struggle, sometimes extremely hard. We do get some assistance, and that’s ok until we get stronger on our feet. We had a choice in what her fate would be, and we faught hard to get her here safely-almost losing her multiple times. I spent 9 months of my teenage years bed ridden. My husband and I spent our teenage years struggling to make it, but never once did the thought cross our minds that she wasn’t worth it.
Well said Julia! I couldn’t agree more. I have no idea what I would choose based on circumstances. Maybe…maybe not, but the freedom of the choice is important. No man can judge us. God only. Its our job to love people as he’s called us to do. He died to we could have choices. He made us so we could have choices. right or wrong. so no mater what it is the womans choice. she carries the responsibly, the gift, the burden how ever she sees it or is to her. I have to leave this group. There are too many things I disagree upon. Keep courage!
Hey Alisha. I’m not quite sure what you’re driving at, so maybe you can clarify.
I agree God has called us to love others. I also agree that God is our only rightful judge. But I’m not sure why this is relevant to the discussion about what the first feminists thought about abortion.
Jesus did not die “so we could have choices.” We already had choices. People make choices all the time regardless of anything Christ has done for them. Jesus died so our sins could be forgiven—including the sin of killing (or allowing others to kill) one’s own child.
You would be surprised by what a high percentage of women who conceived via rape are NOT well-represented by the abortion propaganda. I was. The “what about rape?” question is far more broadly used OUTSIDE the community of those to whom it’s relevant than WITHIN it — offering yet one more example of how women have been exploited to serve someone’s political agenda. Just like Norma McCorvey (“Roe,” of Roe v. Wade) and “Sandra Doe,” part of the other prominent case of the time. Maybe we should consider — as Luke pointed out — getting back to caring about WOMEN more than RHETORIC.
Yes. Take care of women. Give them choice. Do not sign off the control of their bodies to their husbands or relatives. Stop crazy no abortion after 6 weeks stuff. That is taking care of women. Fund “planned parenthood”, so women can get mammograms, health checks, help with pregnancy and advise on planning the family. That is taking care of women. You want take care of women- with all the might you fight abortion go and fight for maternity leave, help with child care. That is taking care of women. Not just telling them what to do and then going away. Because now you are just moving air, nothing more.
Julia, with all due respect, you have no idea what you’re talking about. This assumption that people who don’t believe in the murder of innocents just say, “don’t get an abortion, but I don’t care what happens to you; figure it out on your own,” is FALSE. I know. I spent most of my teenage years sharing a bedroom with a variety of young ladies who were unmarried and pregnant or with young babies, so my family could either care for them during their pregnancies before they gave them up for adoption (if that was their choice), and/or helping them learn to take care of their little ones (if that was their choice) and finish school if they were still at that point.
There are lots of choices.
(And Planned Parenthood doesn’t need anyone’s “support.” The “non-profit” already turns a tidy profit every year.
What Rachel said.
Julia, you seem to be saying that “taking care of women” and having an anti-abortion stance are somehow mutually exclusive positions. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are over 2500 pro-life pregnancy centers in the US, far outnumbering abortion clinics. These are non-profit groups that exist to help mothers and their children. If the pro-life movement was truly about just outlawing abortion to the exclusion of helping women, then these centers would not exist—and yet they exist in the thousands.
Maybe I’m missing something in your stance, but right now, you just seem to be very misinformed.
Also, you never replied to some of my previous comments (this one, this one, and this one), and I would love it if you could.
Wow – thank you! I wish we could hear voices like yours more loudly. I appreciate you taking the time to write this!
Thanks, Sarah. 🙂
Thank you for sharing such a thoughtful, thorough post on this topic – and for linking up to Works for Me Wednesday!
I guess I should stop somewhere.
Well, I understand you holding your grounds. However, I do not remember who said that but it was said that “Only if you are in exact situation, live in exact conditions, deal with exactly the same points, can you judge a person”. The only way to avoid undesired pregnancy is to punish sexual interactions without intent to conceive a child. Saying that a woman cannot decide whether to keep a child is hypocritical at its best. You are saying about alleviating the problems for pregnant women. Are you personally going to throw up instead of me every few hours (and this is only one example)? My friend, who took the last anti-nausea pill before heading to the hospital and who had a supply of bags in her pocket during both of her pregnancies told me she would abort the child if she ever conceived one more. I would never blame her for that! She is a hero for surviving through these two! Have you tried throwing up for 36 weeks???
And I would like to see pro-choice supporters personally take a hand of that 17 year old scared girl and walk with her all her life, supporting (in all aspects) and mentoring (not that you have to keep a child stuff)!!!
It is much easier to be a “couch-warrior” and judge others. You are saying adoption is a good choice. Well, why a woman who does not want a child has to go through almost 10 months of pregnancy with all it’s “benefits”, be left with stretch marks, extra pounds and a trauma of delivery if she did not intent to have a child on the first place? Should she be punished for having sex?
Luke, this is a complex issue. Saying “let’s make abortion illegal” is far not the answer to it. Pointing a finger will not help either. Sexually abused by her father girl is getting pregnant with his child. Why is she supposed to be punished for the sins of her father by carrying his child? As I said, this issue is far more complex then the solution pro-life supporters offer. You make abortion illegal in the US, people will take “abortion holidays” to other countries; women will not go to see OBGYN to hide pregnancy until they decide what to do – health risk. Plus is it not the imposition on women’s freedom to chose what to do with her body? We do have enough orphans to adopt, we should think about them. Yes, we should educate our kids to avoid early pregnancy, educate about birth control and planning. Yes, we should help women whose decision is based on economical situation (as I said, take on maternity leave – big help to reduce abortions). Yes, we should support women mentally, so they do not see pregnancy as a burden. But as I said, do not judge people unless you are in exactly the same situation as they are (meaning – ever!).
I think you and I have made our own opinions pretty clear, Julia, and I don’t suppose we’ll come to any consensus.
You clearly think that making abortion illegal could cause a lot of problems for women who feel bearing a child (especially a child they did not plan for or a child that was forced upon them) is too psychologically and economically burdensome.
I clearly think that making abortion illegal solves the problem of a whole class of people (pregnant women) being allowed to kill another defenseless class of people (babies in the womb).
For you, the psychological harm of women carrying children they don’t want is the great injustice. For me, the killing of innocent human beings is the great injustice. For me, the greater evil seems so ridiculously apparent that it hardly needs justification, which is probably why folks like me find folks like you so baffling.
Getting back to the theme of the article…
I feel like I have gone to great lengths in both my post and in my comments to show that I am taking into account the injustices done to women in the world—in fact, the whole point of the article is that the proud heritage of the women’s rights movement (which has seen so many good victories) has always acknowledged these injustices and sought to correct them. I’ve also tried to show how for over 100 years, recognition of these injustices did not lead women to the conclusion that legal abortions were the answer. These are simply historical facts about their position, and I state them here in order to show abortion-rights feminists that to be pro-life and pro-woman are very compatible. For the first century of women’s rights, to be pro-choice was seen actually as an attack on women. That’s simply a fact of history, even if we disagree with that position.
So far, this article and my comments have been striving to enter the dialogue about the real pains women endure in pregnancy (thanks, in large part, to the way women are terribly wronged), all the while showing why, in my opinion, this is very compatible with the pro-life position. However, from your comments here, you don’t seem willing to enter the dialogue pro-lifers are having and talking about the very thing they deem important: namely, the life of a baby in the womb. My comments about the ending of human life—ending millions of human lives—literally invokes no comment from you whatsoever.
This, I feel, is one of the great reasons why pro-lifers find it so hard to budge, and perhaps why we often seem so brazen about our opinions: instead of pro-choice advocates choosing to talk about abortion as even a moral dilemma, something that ends the life of one of our species, pro-choice supporters don’t even like to bring that part up. People like me don’t see pro-choicers even wrestling over the ethical questions about ending life, so we conclude either you don’t care (which makes you look heartless) or you don’t know (which makes you look ignorant). I say this to you now, not because I think it will convince you to be pro-life, but because I hope it will help you to more persuasively enter dialogue with folks like me.
“Only if you are in exact situation, live in exact conditions, deal with exactly the same points, can you judge a person”.
Does this also apply if I walk into my neighbor’s house and shoot him? Nobody gets to “judge” that action as wrong or unacceptable, because they haven’t been in an identical situation to mine?
Dear Rachel, I admire your parents for helping others. However, I do not think you can blindly say that I do not have any idea of what I am talking about. Remember, do not judge? I have lived enough and saw enough to be able to say what I say. As I already mentioned, woman has to have a choice. Your parents gave the choice to those, who decided to keep the pregnancy. But I am a firm believer that you or anybody else do not have the right to tell me what to do with my own body or life. It is a complex issue and I am not trying to convince you to see my point of view. I am just saying that you don’t have the right to decide what is wrong or right. Nobody does. Nobody can tell a mother to give birth to child with known Down syndrome or any other trisomy, and nobody can judge her decision. Do not judge. Period.
You have managed to miss the whole point of the article. It’s not your body or your life under discussion. It’s the body and the life of a tiny innocent person which you, with very inconsistent reasoning, believe you DO have the right to control — even to the point of death.
Murder is wrong. Period.
Julia, I firmly believe that a woman has a right to her own body no matter where she is—even if she is in the womb of her mother. Yet you seem to think the little women in the womb shouldn’t have these rights. Help me out here. This seems very inconsistent to me.
Thank you for the awesome post.
De-stigmatizing abortion is what #shoutyourabortion wants.
But by taking an extremist and absolutist stance on the issue, it skirmishes the moral questions around abortion. De-stigmatizing should not de-sensitize. We need to consider this debate holistically.
The original article (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/22/i-set-up-shoutyourabortion-because-i-am-not-sorry-and-i-will-not-whisper) states “..an abortion is just a medical procedure…it is a fact that a foetus is not a person…” These are the roots of #shoutyourabortion. And I disagree. We cannot ignore that medically and scientifically, the foetus is a human. It does not ‘become human’ at any point in the pregnancy.
One of the comments on the original article states:
“There are only two logical conclusions:
a) Women can have an abortion up until birth,
b) Women may not deliberately have an abortion.
Take your pick.”
And this snippet summarizes the questions around abortion pretty well. Logically, there is not middle ground.
Getting pregnant is a natural consequence of having sex. It is a consequence of an action we (most often) chose. Maybe taking a look at abortion holistically – affording rights to the most vulnerable humans in our society – the unborn – will have us ask better questions about the sexual act and lead more prudent and ultimately happier lives.
I respect and love women, and as a man, I accept that many of the issues around abortion are a consequence of men not taking responsibilities for our actions. We really need to highlight this as an issue. Equality, respect and love is not something women should have to fight for, it is something that they ought to be given, and this ultimately requires a mindset and behavioral change from us men.
Thanks for your thoughts, Antonio. A holistic approach is absolutely needed.
Thank you for the article! Very informative and I will share so more read it. It saddens me that so many choose to IGNORE the lives of these unseen human beings. If you can’t see the wind, does it mean it doesn’t exist? Yes, it is a complex issue, so why do we choose a one size fits all ‘solution’? We focus our attention on one thing anortion is legal, and believe that is the answer?
Thanks for reading, Ana. And thanks for sharing!
Thank you for the article! I’ve been having some sleepless nights on this issue, especially in the light of the growing trend toward pro-abortion even in the Christian community. The problem with most of the so-called pro-choice argument is that they reason that a single mother will HAVE to be uneducated, HAVE to have a low paying job, and HAVE to carry the burden of an unplanned child. This reasoning is not only outdated but misleading. Look around you, the internet has opened the way for so many people, whether it is online college, online jobs, etc. No single mother HAS to go uneducated; many colleges offer single parent relief funding (some even give grants for housing). The minimum wage jobs aren’t the only ones out there as many mothers are making a steady income blogging online, working online (VISA and MASTERCARD pay $15/hour for customer service for crying outloud), or selling on EBAY or ETSY.
The internet when used wisely has become a threshold for opportunity that can be accessed for free at any library.
Another point as although a mother who is a victim of a rape may not want to raise that unborn child, but let me ask you pro-abortionists:
What crime has that LIFE, committed that warrants the death penalty?
Other then being conceived, that life is already being accused of potential crimes against it’s mother, society, even this world; before they’ve even entered it. Why, in the name of giving the mother a so called “choice” do you sentance this baby to death?
The fact is out of ALL abortions done in America every year, less then 1% of them actually are done due to rape, incense, or to save the life of them mother. This shows a dangerous trend accuring. Even if you aren’t Christian, Evolutionarily speaking a society that kills off it’s young, it’s future generation, is considered doomed to die out.
I speak out as a daughter, raised by a mother who let her heart out about her own abortion. My mother at a time when her and her boyfriend (my future father) were in an unstable relationship, working hard for little pay, and really homeless. She was the posterchild for having her “choice” when she found out she was pregnant. She had the abortion. She regrets it to this day, I’ll never forget with tears in her eyes as she told me, “I pray everyday that when I meet that baby in heaven, that he or she will forgive me.”
That’s what this so called “choice” brings, a woman trying to make a living in this world, has an abortion, will still be trying to make it. Not having children doesn’t cause high wage jobs to start calling for interviews, you still have to pay for college, and you still have to make rent.
So instead of degrading woman, telling them they are to weak to have a child right now, to weak to go to school and raise a baby (my grandmother raised two daughters, worked full time, and gained a masters in teaching). Raise woman up, we are strong, we find a way to make it work, we find a future not only for us but also our children.
Sorry, for being so long winded…
Thanks for your thoughts on this. This is what the early feminists had right: they understood widespread abortion was both oppressive to women and oppressive to the unborn. Abortion doesn’t solve problems. It creates new ones.
What if we lived in a world that celebrated motherhood, parenthood, children, and life? What if raising children ranked above travel, pleasure, financial success, etc? It sounds like a fantasy, but I think it’s the only way to end abortion. We talk about women’s rights and it seems like we are missing the big picture.
Reading all the comments gives me a sense that many pro choice advocates are missing the big picture. I mean, we live in a world where mothers can kill their own offspring. Can you think of anything more destabilizing and unsafe than such a world? A baby is not even safe in its mothers womb?! What in the world is going on?!
Thank you for this well written article. It is such an emotionally charged subject, but I think you did a great job lending credibility and sensibility to the pro life movement.
Thanks for reading, Crystal! I agree.
“What if we lived in a world that celebrated motherhood, parenthood, children, and life? What if raising children ranked above travel, pleasure, financial success, etc? It sounds like a fantasy, but I think it’s the only way to end abortion. We talk about women’s rights and it seems like we are missing the big picture.”
Crystal you are dead on! Why is motherhood and raising children frowned upon in our society? If that would change, so would the view of abortion.
Luke,
Not only did I find your article to be spot on, but am sitting here admiring the gracious way that you addressed remarks in the comments. You showed patience, knowledge and tact. Well done, sir! Like you, the word “baffled” enters my mind when I think of how some people can’t see this as it is when presented with clear facts. It seems that this is just one example of “good being called evil and evil being called good” that we’re told to watch for. As with most examples of this that I see, our flesh – our feelings – lie to us. And while it sounds much kinder to take the pro-choice route, when the situation is laid out (as you have done) it’s so not! Paul’s many warnings of “do not be deceived” remind me to pray for those that have been deceived by what is being called good and wise, but is not. Thanks for the food for thought today..will be sharing this!
Thanks, Susan! Please do share!
Thanks for your thoughts Luke. I actually assume your wife wrote the article until I saw your smiling face at the bottom.
In Australia we have had #end the stigma. Encouraging women to speak out about their abortions. This same group stood at a pro-life rally and shouted down and shamed women who were speaking about their abortion, and how they regretted them. And we do have abortion up until birth here, and 50% of these late term abortions are on healthy mothers with healthy babies. If people truely believed abortion should be rare they wouldn’t be pushing for more abortion. 25% of pregnancies is not rare.
Kylie, absolutely.
I find it odd when groups speaking out against “the stigma of abortion” act in a manner that flies in the face of their own movement. If someone actually regrets their abortion because of their worldview, then allow them the freedom to express that regret without shaming them—because otherwise we are just working to create a new kind of “stigma.”
Thanks for telling me about the movement in Australia. I hadn’t heard of it before you mentioned it.