APPENDIX I
[Frederica Mathewes-Green, author of Real Choices: Listening to Women, Looking for
Alternatives to Abortion (Concitiar Press, 1997) is a columnist for Christianity Today and
4 commentator on National Public Radio's “All Things Considered.” The following first
appeared in Focus on the Family magazine (Jan, 2000) and is reprinted with permission.]
Susan B. Anthony: Pro-life Feminist
The icon of modern-day feminism would be
horrified at what is being done in her name
Frederica Mathewes-Green
Susan B. Anthony isa hero of the feminist movement, and with good cause: She
was a trailblazer in the women’s movement in the late 1800s. A Quaker who never
married, Anthony devoted her energy first to the abolition of slavery and then to
women’s equality at the ballot box. She and other early feminists believed that the
power of the vote was the key to fulfilling all other goals.
Willing to go to jail for what she believed, Anthony illegally cast a ballot in the
1872 presidential election and was arrested. Regard for her by modern-day advo-
cates of women’s rights led to the production of the Susan B. Anthony $1 coin in
1979.
A “most monstrous crime”
‘There is, however, one thing these advocates don’t know about Anthony, some-
thing that might temper their adoration, Susan B, Anthony was pro-life.
How could a feminist be pro-life? Simple: Abortion hurts women. Anthony and
her friends knew this, and in fact the feminist movement did not support abortion
until the 1970s.
A hundred years ago Anthony wrote an essay in her publication, The Revolution,
about the “horrible crime of child-murder.” “She was considering specifically the
tragedy of abortion within marriage, wherein a pregnant wife “destroys the little
being, she thinks, before it lives.”
Anthony wanted to “eradicate this most monstrous crime” but feared that laws
alone would not be sufficient: “We must reach the root of the evil and destroy it.”
Anthony wrote about this evil with passion: “Guilty? Yes, no matter what the
motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the
woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in
life, it will burden her soul in death; but oh! Thrice guilty is he who, for selfish
gratification, heedless of her prayers, indifferent to her fate, drove her to the des-
peration which impels her to the crime.”
Modern footsteps
But surely the era of feminists who oppose abortion is in the past? Not accord-
ing to Mary Krane Derr, an author who researched the writings of historical
Winter 200/125APPENDIX I
feminists for the book Pro-Life Feminism: Yesterday and Today. Dert discovered
dozens of essays by a wide range of feminists decrying the violence of abortion
and its damage to women
“According to the early feminists, abortion resulted from the denial of the preg-
nant woman’s humanity as much as from a denial of the unborn child's,” wrote
Derr, who still terms herself a feminist. “Women felt pressured into aborting be-
cause they were deprived of truly life-affirming sexual and reproductive options.
This is still very much the case. If we don’t want unborn children to be treated as
insensate clumps of tissue, we must first of all ensure that their mothers are not
treated as insensate clumps of tissue.”
When asked if she still calls herself a feminist, author and psychologist Sidney
Callahan says, “Oh, yes, I do, Feminism began with an analysis of the abuse of
power and the impulse to fight inequality. My going on to take a pro-life position
was a natural extension of feminism, just making it deeper.”
Often in her speeches Callahan shocks audiences by declaring, “Women will
never climb to equality and social empowerment over mounds of dead fetuses.”
She believes that many contemporary feminist themes should point to pro-life
conclusions. “Feminists were leaders in the areas of the ecology, peace, and non-
violence. All of these contribute to the pro-life position.”
As a popular bumper sticker produced by the organization Feminists for Life
says, “Peace Begins in the Womb.”
That’s a position Susan B. Anthony would understand. When a man sought to
compliment her by saying what a fine mother she would have been, she responded,
“Sweeter even than to have had the joy of caring for children of my own has it been
to me to help bring about a better state of things for mothers generally, so that their
unborn little ones could not be willed away from them.”
126/Winrer 2000