It is ironic that feminism has become synonymous with abortion-on-demand. Unfortunately, the women's movement has been identified predominantly with the political agenda of the National Organization of Women or the feminist liberation theology articulated at the "Re-Imagining" Conference. These characterizations, however, are not consistent with historic feminism.
Theologian Elizabeth Achtemeier and other concerned women have been very careful to distinguish between "feminism" and "radical feminism." Christians would do well to understand the distinction. After all, the gospel is de facto feminist. Jesus himself, proclaiming the reign of God, affirmed the humanity and worth of women by dealing with women in a style contrary to the cultural norms of his day. Pentecost and the witness of Paul signaled a new day of equality for men and women as God intended (Genesis 1-2).
This Christian understanding has not been without witness in this country. Christian feminists of the 1800s stood for women's rights and opposed abortion. Contemporary feminists can trace the roots of the women's movement to a group of Christian activists who organized the first Women's Rights Convention at the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, New York, on July 19,1848.
Those were the days when feminism meant defending the well-being of all of God's children. Slaves yearning for freedom, children working in the sweat shops, women longing for a college education and the right to vote, and babies waiting to be born relied on the courageous witness of our feminist foremothers.
Without exception, all of the early feminists of the last century were opposed to abortion. Susan B. Anthony called it "child murder" and viewed it as a means of exploiting both women and children. Anthony's newspaper, The Revolution, made this claim in 1868: "When a woman destroys the life of her unborn child, it is a sign that, by education or circumstances, she has been greatly wronged."
Another leading feminist, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, said this about abortion in 1873: "When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we wish."
Early feminists Matilda Gage, Lucretia Mott, Tennessee Claflin, and Victoria Woodhull were all opposed to abortion. Even Alice Paul, who drafted the original version of the Equal Rights Amendment, called abortion "the ultimate exploitation of women."
Radical feminists acknowledge an "environment of violence" against women while simultaneously upholding the dehumanization of and violence toward their unborn sisters. Mother Teresa recently told those attending the National Prayer Breakfast, "Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use violence to get what they want." She called abortion "the greatest destroyer of peace today."
In The Brothers Karamazov, one character challenges another as to whether he would consent to be the architect of a new world in which all people would be happy and at peace, upon the condition that "it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature—that baby... for instance—and to found that edifice on her unavenged tears." In Sisterlife, the publication of Feminists for Life Frederica Mathewes-Green observes, "Not just one death lies beneath this edifice, but tens of millions, with thousands more every day. Justice cannot be built on such a bloody foundation." She goes on: "The feminism that hoped to create a new, just society had embraced as essential an act of injustice."
In stark contrast, Kate Michelman, president of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), says, "We have to remind people that abortion is the guarantor of a woman's... right to participate fully in the social and political life of society." The opposite, however, is true. Abortion does not guarantee a woman's right to engage fully in society. Pro-life feminists refuse to participate in their own oppression or in the oppression of their children (see the Song of Mary, Luke 1:46-55). They refuse to accept abortion, which denigrates the life-giving capacity of women. Abortion, and the perceived need for it, validates the unchristian worldview which holds that women, encumbered as they are by their reproductive capacity, are inferior to men. In this way, abortion liberates men, not women.
It is a dreadful fact that the earliest form of abuse and oppression of women continues to take place in the womb. Every year in America, 750,000 preborn females are ushered out of the place that should be the safest environment for every human being.
Elsewhere, abortion has become the primary means of eliminating unwanted females. Newsweek reports that of 8,000 amniocentesis tests in Bombay, India, all but one that verified a female infant resulted in an abortion. According to Time, "In South Korea, where fetal testing to determine sex is common, male births exceed female births by 14 percent, in contrast to a worldwide average of 5 percent. In Guangdong province, the China news agency Xinhua reported, 500,000 bachelors are approaching middle age without hopes of marrying, because they outnumber women ages 30 to 45 by more than 10 to 1."
Feminism is correct when it protests violence against women and children. Unfortunately, abortion is never mentioned in this context. "Abortion kills a living human being and mutilates another," says feminist writer Rachel McNair. "Surgery done on a healthy body is mutilation, and such surgery done without adequately informed consent is battery. Legalized abortion without even minimal informed consent is widespread, epidemic battering of women."
Truly liberated women reject abortion because they reject a worldview that accepts violence as a legitimate solution to conflict (Matthew 5:44). Rather than settling for mere equality—the right to contribute equally to the evil of the world—true feminists seek to transform society. Feminists, Christian or not, believe that all human beings have inherent worth and that this worth cannot be conferred or denied by another. During the time of Israel's exile God asked, "Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you" (Isaiah 49:15 NRSV). As scholar Gretchen Gaebelein Hull observes, "The wonder of God-in-Christ come as one of us informs us of the value God puts on every stage of human development."
Abortion is incompatible with this feminist and Christian vision of the worth of all people. Pro-life feminists reject the pro-choice argument that it is cheaper to abort the children of the poor than to support and educate them. "This is what you really think of us," was what one poor woman said to an abortion advocate. The current trend in welfare reform would deny subsidies for additional children born to welfare mothers, but fully fund their abortions. While it purports to encourage responsibility, it in fact leaves her with little "choice" but to get a free abortion. In this case, society washes its hands of both mother and child. Not only is the abortion ethic sexist, it's elitist and racist.
Abortion fragments women. It pits them against their own children as competitors for the favors of the patriarchy. Women who accept abortion have agreed to depersonalize and sacrifice their own children as a condition of full participation in a man's world. "In a healthy society, new life is welcomed and women's awesome powers of fertility are respected and accommodated," notes Mathewes-Green.
Those feminists who demand the right to abortion concede the notion that a pregnant woman is inferior to a non-pregnant one. They suggest that pregnancy and motherhood are incompatible with the concept of a fully functioning adult, and that an unencumbered, unattached male is the model for success. By settling for abortion instead of working for the social changes that would make it possible to combine children and career, pro-abortion feminists have agreed to participate in a man's world under male terms. Pro-abortion feminists have corrupted feminism by embracing standards which hold that it is permissible to treat "unequals" unequally and for the powerful to oppress the weak. Women deserve better.
Judy Fetters is co-chairperson of the Delaware chapter of Feminists for Life of America. She is an educator, mother of six, and member of Immaculate Heart of Mary Roman Catholic Church in Wilmington, Delaware.
Connie Roland Alt is pastor of Christ United Methodist Church in Wilmington, Delaware, and president of Clergy for Life. She is married and the mother of two daughters.