As a woman, I do not identify at all with the opinions expressed in Cosmo’s recent article “Abandoning Abortion Rights Means Abandoning Women”.
We are not abandoned, we are empowered.
Anyone who says otherwise does not speak for me, nor for the millions of women across the United States who firmly believe that being pro-life and pro-woman go hand in hand.
Pro-life women are not a “fringe minority”. In fact, we are a part of the nearly 8 in 10 majority of Americans that support major abortion restrictions, including restricting abortion to the first 3 months of pregnancy.
Politically speaking, respect for the dignity of all human life is a consistently a winning issue that both parties should embrace. The 2016 election is clear evidence of this.
In an extreme departure from the “safe, legal and rare” mantra, in last year’s presidential election, the Democratic National Committee platform not only abandoned the 26% of Democrats who identify as pro-life, but the 44% of their base who do not want their tax dollars funding abortion, by advocating for unlimited abortion access and a full repeal of the Hyde amendment, which, until that time had widely been considered popular, bipartisan policy. Meanwhile, Donald Trump committed to “work to support the dignity of human life from conception to natural, dignified death” during his campaign and was elected President.
This is not “fringe”.
Pro-life women are not a “discomforted set” of society clinging to an archaic anthem of female subservience. We are CEOs, lawyers, doctors, teachers, writers, baristas, college students, and everything in between, and we believe that our unique capacity for motherhood does not lessen our ambition, but rather, furthers our potential for greatness.
Equality and respect must be ensured for all human life, even those not yet born. This guiding principle upheld by the pro-life movement is consistent in everything we do. Look at Brandi Swindell, Founder and CEO of the Stanton Healthcare Clinics, who works tirelessly creating an effective network of top-notch health clinics that provide whole women’s health care, not abortion. Or consider Helen Alvare, professor of law at George Mason School of Law who began the grassroots movement for hundreds of thousands of pro-life females, “Women Who Speak for Themselves”. Better yet, look at the thousands of women who travel from all across the country to participate in the world’s largest annual civil rights rally – the March for Life – which will celebrate its 45th year this coming January.
Asserting that women are nothing without unrestricted access to Planned Parenthood, abortion and birth control is degrading. Abortion access does not constitute feminism. True female empowerment means ensuring that all women have equal and full access to the resources and opportunities to that they need to achieve their dreams, whatever those may be.
Though dressed in trappings of pink pu**y hats and girl-power positivity, organizations like Planned Parenthood and NARAL speak to further their own political agenda, personal funding, and self-promotion; not women’s interest. Abortion opens the door to exploitation, but choosing life leads to love.
In contrast, we speak not just for ourselves, but for the unborn. It is our own decision to be both unabashedly pro-life and unwaveringly pro-woman; and we will not be voiced over.
Feminists for Life have a wonderful slogan, “Women deserve better than abortion.” Women deserve to have political allies that recognize this. It is time to invest in true women’s empowerment and in life.
