Why Feminists Should Abhor Abortion
"Of all the things which are done to women to fit them into a society dominated by men, abortion is the most violent invasion of their physical and psychic integrity" -Daphne Dejong, Former President of Feminists For Life
Article "Legal Abortion Exploits Women" by: Daphne Dejong, Former President of Feminists For Life
The women's movement suffers from three classic defense mechanisms associated with minority group status: self-rejection, identification with the dominant group, and displacement.
The demand for abortion at will is a symptom of group self-hatred and total rejection not of sex role but of sex identity.
The womb is not the be-all and end-all of a woman's existence. But it is the physical centre of her sexual identity, which is an important aspect of her self image and personality. To reject its function, or to regard it as a handicap, a danger or nuisance, is to reject a vital part of her own personhood. Every woman need not be a mother, but unless every woman can identify with the potential motherhood of all women, no equality is possible.
Pregnant Peoples' Rights
Women will gain their rights only when they demand recognition of the fact that they are people who become pregnant and give birth--and not always at infallibly convenient times--and that pregnant people have the same rights as others.
To say that in order to be equal with men it must be possible for a pregnant woman to become unpregnant at will, is to say that being a woman precludes her from being a fully functioning person. It concedes the point to those who claim that women who want equality really want to be imitation men.
If women must submit to abortion to preserve their lifestyle or career, their economic or social status, they are pandering to a system devised and run by men for male convenience. The politics of sexism are perpetuated by accommodating to expediential societal structures which decree that pregnancy is incompatible with other activities, and that the children are the sole responsibility of the mother.
The demand for abortion is a sell-out to male values and a capitulation to male lifestyles rather than a radical attempt to renegotiate the terms by which women and men can live in the world as people with equal rights and equal opportunities. Black "Uncle Toms" have their counterparts not only in women who cling to the chains of their kitchen sinks, but also in those who proclaim their own liberation while failing to recognize that they have merely adopted the standards of the oppressor, and fashioned themselves in his image.
Oppressed groups traditionally turn their frustrated vengeance on those even weaker than themselves. The unborn is the natural scapegoat for the repressed anger and hostility of women, which is denied in traditional male-female relationships, and ridiculed when it manifest itself in the feminist protest. Even while proclaiming "her" rights of the fetus, much liberationist rhetoric identifies pregnancy with male chauvinist "ownership." The inference is that by implanting "his" seed, the man establishes some claim over a woman's body ("Keeping her barefoot and pregnant"). Abortion is almost consciously seen as "getting back at" the male. The truth may well be that the liberationist sees the fetus not as a part of her body but as a part of his.
Abortion Manipulates Women
What escapes most liberationist writers is that legal abortion is neither a remedy not an atonement for male exploitation of women. It is merely another way in which women are manipulated and degraded for male convenience and male profit. This becomes blatantly obvious in the private abortion industries of both Britain and America, and the support given to the pro-abortion lobby by such exploitative corporations as the Playboy empire.
Of all the things which are done to women to fit them into a society dominated by men, abortion is the most violent invasion of their physical and psychic integrity. It is a deeper and more destructive assault than rape, the culminating act of womb-envy and woman-hatred by the jealous male who resents the creative power of women.
Just as the rapist claims to be "giving the women what they want," the abortionist affirms his right to provide a service for which there is a feminine demand.
Offered the quick expedient of abortion, instead of community support to allow her to experience pregnancy and birth and parenthood with dignity and without surrendering her rights as a person, woman is again the victim, and again a willing participant in her own destruction.
The way to equality is not to force women into molds designed for men, but to re-examine out basic assumptions about men and women, about child-care and employment, about families and society, and design new and more flexible modes for living. Accepting short-term solutions like abortion only delays the implementation of real reforms like decent maternity and paternity leaves, job protection, high quality child care, community responsibility for dependant people of all ages, and recognition of the economic contribution of child-minders. Agitation for the imaginative use of glide time, shared jobs, shorter working weeks, good creches, part-time education and job training, is more constructive for women--and men--torn between career and children, than agitation for abortion.
Women Processed Through Abortion Mills
Today's women's movement remains rooted in 19th-century thinking, blindly accepting patriarchal systems as though they rested on some immutable natural law; processing woman through abortion mills to manufacture instant imitation men who will fit into a society made by and for wombless people. Accepting the "necessity" of abortion is accepting that pregnant women and mother are unable to function as persons in this society. It indicated a willingness to adjust to the status quo which is a betrayal of the feminist cause, a loss of the revolutionary vision of a world fit for people to live in...
Human rights are not exclusive. Any claim to a superior or exceptional right inevitably infringes on the rights of someone else. To ignore the rights of other in an effort to assert our own is to compound injustice, rather than reduce it.
Daphne Dejong
Feminists Should Oppose Abortion
Article by: Frederica Mathewes-Green
For over a hundred years feminists have warned us that abortion is a form of violence and oppression against women and their children. They called it "child murder" (Susan B. Anthony), "degrading to women" (Elizabeth Cady Stanton), "apalling" proof of "the misery of the working class" (Emma Goldman), "most barbaric" (Margret Sanger [?!]), and "a disowning of feminine values" (Simone de Beauvoir). How have we lost this wisdom? ...
Abortion advocy has been poinsonous to some of the deeper values of feminism. For example, the need to discredit the fetus has led to the use of terms that would be disastrous if applied to women. "It's so small," "It's unwanted," "It might be disabled," "It might be abused." Too often women are small, unwanted, disabled, or abused. Do we really want to say that these factors erase parenthood?
Frederica Mathewes-Green, Sisterlife, Winter 1990
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