Pro-life feminism is a growing movement in the United States, although such feminists are routinely barred from active participation in official feminist organizations.  Feminists for Life of Colorado published the following position statement in the Rocky Mountain News last June, while the pro-abortion National Organization for Women (NOW) was holding its annual convention in Denver.

Feminists for Life are interested in hearing from Canadian women interested in starting chapters, or willing to co-ordinate mailing of information and newsletters to Canadian members.  Readers should write to Feminists for Life, 811 East 47th Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64110.

Many of us who have been active in the feminist movement for years recognize that abortion is hurting women’s equality and women’s rights as well as degrading individual women.

These opinions have been formed by:

  • Familiarity with the actual experiences that lead women to abort, including hostility to pregnancy, medical and sexual exploitation, insensitivity to a new mother’s needs and encouragement of low self-esteem; familiarity also with the frequently traumatic after-effects of abortion on individual women.
  • A recognition that discrimination against any member of the human race dynamites the very foundation of feminism; that fatal discrimination against unborn children cannot be contemplated by those insisting on equality for themselves.
  • An adherence to traditional feminist philosophy, in which abortion was often referred to as an atrocity, forced upon women by a male dominated society.
  • An awareness that much of the support for abortion comes from selfish motives far removed from women’s welfare – abortionists making lucrative profits even by medical standards; men whose desire for sexual exploitation of women precludes taking responsibility for children thus conceived; judges who regard women as such poor decision-makers as to allow the abortionist to give incomplete information by striking down informed consent laws; and taxpayers who note that a dead child costs less than a live one.

NOW has strongly supported “Catholics for a Free Choice.”  A New York Times ad which calls for a diversity of opinion on the abortion among Catholics.  Surely it is not too much to expect that they practice what they preach and allow the same diversity and open-minded debate within their own organization.  The national leadership of NOW has consistently condemned all pro-lifers, including their sister pro-life feminists.

On the occasion of NOW’s 20th anniversary, we appeal to its membership to address this glaring inconsistency.  Those of us feminist activists who publicly dissent from NOW’s position should no longer be excommunicated, heckled or barred from speaking by NOW.