Can you be both pro-life and a feminist?

[eveglass]

Yes, that's right! It's time for another round of "debate Julie"! In today's Gazette, there was a letter to the editor by Mary Ann Davis, who says that "you cannot be pro-life and call yourself a feminist." She's referencing this article, in which Janet Bagnall states, "Feminism is about equality, about a woman's right to make her own choices in life, including whether to continue a pregnancy. Without that right, women lose control over their lives."

I'm conflicted about this one. Personally, I'm pro-choice and totally against the idea of telling a woman that she must carry a pregnancy to term. However, if you truly believe that life begins at conception (as I think most pro-lifers do), and that abortions at any stage of a pregnancy are equivalent to murder, I imagine that you could still be pro-life and a feminist. I imagine that there are still ways of supporting women both before the pregnancies have started (comprehensive sex ed, free birth control pills and condoms, etc.) and after their pregnancies have ended (easy adoption services for women who would otherwise have aborted, affordable daycare and support networks for those who choose to keep the children, etc.).

So I'm not sure I agree that being pro-life necessarily excludes you from the feminist camp. Anyone want to take a side in the debate and tell me where I'm going wrong?

Comments

[prince-hring.livejournal.com]

I'm going to comment without reading the previous comments (then I'll go back and read them). I may end up repeating something that someone else said, but I don't want to be reacting to what others have written.

Labels are tricky things. I grew up in a household (40-50 years ago) where my Mother was a prominent politician. I never heard about "feminism". My family simply practiced it, but didn't give it a name. Women's liberation? I never knew of an environment when they were not free, already.

My father is a Doctor. He was one of the few MDs willing to perform abortions back when its legality was questionable and the roadblocks many. The medical reports would be euphemistically phrased: "D&C for menstrual irregularity" with a pathology report usually consisting simply of the letters "PC" (meaning Products of Conception). He was also one of those quiet rebels who, when faced with the blank on a form that asked for "Patient's race" would fill in "human".

Because of my upbringing, my viewpoint may be skewed.

When does life begin? Several billion years ago. A human ovum is alive. A human spermatozoa is alive. Their union doesn't magically "create life". It merely continues it.

As for our humanity and how that makes us special, my viewpoints begin from a close understanding of evolution and our place in the total ecosystem. From a simply biological viewpoint, we are not special. That which makes us "human" is the mind that slowly develops, rendering us (after a great deal of learning) full participants in the environment that is our society.

From a secular viewpoint, the whole matter of whether or not abortion is murder lies not in how special we are or whether or not a fetus is human, but in the social contract that we have created against murder: we, ourselves, do not wish to be murdered and we, as people with loved ones, do not want our loved ones murdered. The notion of abortion as murder is a straw-man argument, at best, and a terrible red herring tossed into the fray by people who wonder about that single unprovable element that they claim makes us unique: the soul.

My personal views on abortion are not black and white. I do not like abortion. I've never known a woman to have to choose to have an abortion without it leaving her with a permanent mark on her psyche.

I also believe, with all my heart, that safe and legal access to abortion must be preserved. Full stop. Just because I don't like it doesn't matter one whit: it must remain legal and it must remain available.

If one does not want a world with abortion in it, we should strive for a world with more effective conception control. If we really want control over our bodies, control over our reproductive lives, we need to come up with they type of conception control that has the same effectiveness as sterilization, but can be "turned off" if both partners wish to conceive.

Both.

So, am I a "feminist"? If that means that I believe that every human being should have the same basic rights and that those rights include the choice over whether or not their sexual activity leads to conception, then yes.

Am I "pro life"? Obviously. But I am also a strong advocate for the retention of legal and safe abortion.

Until the day that we can control our reproductive lives with the same effectiveness as we control the overhead lights, then there will be unintentional pregnancies, pregnancies by rape, pregnancies by incest, pregnancies that endanger, pregnancies that are "really bad ideas"(tm)... and any other host of pregnancies that will lead a woman to need to make the difficult decision of having an abortion.

I dream of a day when nobody should have to face that sort of decision.