Was Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life?

Was Susan B. Anthony pro-life? Does it matter?

That's the question taken up on the op/ed page of today's New York Times. Stacy Schiff points to the purchase of the estate of the early pioneer of American feminism by the pro-life group Feminists for Life. She then questions whether Anthony really fits the model of a pro-life feminst. It is questionable, she argues, whether Anthony actually wrote the essay against "child murder" quoted by pro-life groups, and these groups, she concludes, never mention that the same essay opposes legislative measures against abortion.

Schiff further contends that Anthony's attitude was hardly pro-natalist. She writes:

In her personal life Anthony was clear in her conviction that women were not preordained to motherhood, that sometimes a woman and her womb might go their separate ways. A devoted aunt, she claimed to appreciate her colleagues’ offspring, some of whom even felt warmly toward her. But she had little patience for maternity. At best she was the ever-helpful friend who asks if you realize what you are in for just as you have vomited your way through your first trimester. At worst she was a ruthless scold.

I wonder how useful this debate is for either side of the abortion debate. Would Anthony's feminism have trumped her concern for the harm abortion does to women, were she living in the contemporary American context? Who knows. Perhaps though the conversation is worthwhile. Schiff, after all, at least recognizes the link between abortion and babies, a truth often lost in the sloganizing over "choice" and "who decides."

Comments

[ron chandonia]

It seems to me that the piece was aimed not so much at the Feminists for Life of America, who now control the Susan B. Anthony home, as at the Democrats for Life, a group created almost single-handedly by Carol Crossed, the woman who purchased the Anthony home for the pro-life group. Lately, being a pro-life Democrat has become almost respectable, what with Chuck Schumer's backing of the Casey candidacy in Pennsylavia and abortion zealots like Hillary Clinton and John Kerry making sweet remarks about pro-lifers. It wasn't long ago that the pro-life Democrats couldn't even get a link on the official Party website. I think the NYTimes wants to make sure they never forget that time.

That said, I almost fell out of my chair when I read Schiff's admission about Anthony, "There is no question that she deplored the practice of abortion, as did every one of her colleagues in the suffrage movement." It was as if she had said, "Well, abortion is child murder, but so what?"--the apparent view of the NYTimes editorial staff.

[Margaret]

This is a handwaving. What Westerner DOES think every woman is "preordained" for motherhood? Christians do not believe God abhors those who never marry or otherwise fail to have children. Matrimony is a holy estate, but St Paul plugs celibacy.

Does teasing or bucking up a nauseated friend mean you're saying her whole pregnancy and whole life as a mother will be one big vomit, or that her baby is sickening?

How exactly does being a "ruthless scold" indicate that you have little patience for maternity?

What rubbish.

[Eileen R]

My thoughts exactly, Margaret. Obviously Stanton received the teasing quite well, given they were good friends.

[Daniel C.]

I heard about Feminists For Life through the blog of Catholic screenwriter. I was struck by the phrase "pro-woman answers to pro-choice questions" put out by this group. It seems, until this group was created, that all previous answers have been "pro-male". This just struck me as absurd. I really wonder what chance pro-life arguments have if a group like this is required to win the debate.

[Daniel C.]

Here's a question for "Feminists for Life": What do you think about the traditional roles men and women have played in the raising of children? Furthermore, as long as your politics, outside the abortion issue, are inexorably linked to Democrats, the political party that includes a call for government funded abortion on demand in its platform, you are wasting your time.

Democrat Platform on abortion:
"Because we believe in the privacy and equality of women, we stand proudly for a woman's right to choose [abortion], consistent with Roe v. Wade, and regardless of her ability to pay. We stand firmly against Republican efforts to undermine that right. At the same time, we strongly support family planning and adoption incentives. Abortion should be safe, legal, and rare."
Source: The Democratic Platform for America, p.36
http://www.ontheissues.org/Archive/Dem_Platform_2004_Abortion.htm

[GL]

Daniel,

I heard a segment on the "pro-woman answers to pro-choice questions" on Issues, etc. last week. This approach was designed to deal with such issues as rape (which topic made up the greatest part of the segment I heard). I think it may be useful to have women who may have suffered this great crime to come forward and talk about their choice to keep the child or their regrets at having had an abortion in such cases. For women in that tragic situation, logical arguments from a man are not likely to be well received or effective. These women are in the middle of a crisis not of their making and having a empathetic approach from a woman who has faced the same situation is much more likely to be effective and well received.

[Daniel C.]

GL, I understand the point, that only the raped can help the raped, but I find it unpersuasive. This is the "if you don't experience it, then you have nothing to add" position. By that emoting then only the those left behind by a murder can help those left behind by a murder; only the tortured can help the tortured; only the mugged can help the mugged, etc., etc., etc. I can knock this argument down by simply pointing out that plenty of unmarried priests help married couples every day, plenty of psychologists, psychatrists and counselors help crime victims every day without ever experiencing the crimes the victims experienced.

If we extend that kind of emotional thinking beyond the rape scenario, then no man can ever make an effective argument against abortion to a woman because men don't give birth, and men never have to deal with the emotional impact of a pregnancy. Is that where the Pro-Life movement should be headed?

[GL]

GL, I understand the point, that only the raped can help the raped, but I find it unpersuasive. This is the "if you don't experience it, then you have nothing to add" position.

As far as I understand it, the Feminists for Life are not precluding you or me from doing what we can to support the pro-life cause and to dissuade whomever we can from having an abortion, they are just adding their efforts to ours to reach women who might well not listen to us. What's wrong with that?

As to where the pro-life movement should be headed, it should be headed in whatever directions (and it can move on multiple fronts at the same time) to save as many actual living human beings as it can by any means that it can so long as those means are not illegal, immoral or unethical. It does neither you nor me any harm for feminists to speak to women who will not listen to us no matter how sound our arguments might be and it might well save some lives. Whether those same women should listen to us is irrelevant to whether they will. I am more than willing to welcome the Feminists for Life efforts if they can actually save some babies who would otherwise be killed. I may disagree with them vehemently on many other issues, but on this issue we have a common cause.

John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” But Jesus said, “Do not stop him, for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. For the one who is not against us is for us.

Mark 9:38-40 (ESV)

[James A. Altena]

"GL, I understand the point, that only the raped can help the raped, but I find it unpersuasive. This is the 'if you don't experience it, then you have nothing to add' position."

GL did not argue this point, which would be an obvious logical fallacy. What he correctly pointed out is that women who have been horrifically traumatized and abused by men through rape generally are not going to be receptive to logical arguments -- particularly by and from men -- but will be open to arguments presented by women who have suffered as they have. Logic is indispensible (and I'm an obsessive stickler for it myself), but it is not exhaustive. There are times and places where empathy and shared experience will gain access, but abstract argument will find the door shut and barred (as any married man can testify). Even logic has its limitations; we are saved by faith (trust), and the three great theological virtues are faith, hope, and charity. We are not saved by logic. Jesus did not demonstrate that He was God incarnate and the Saviour of all mankind by logical ratiocination, but by suffering on the Cross. And his invitation/command to his disciples likewise to take up the Cross means here that the person who would convince the raped woman not to abort a resulting child must perforce enter into and bear her suffering with and for her, as Christ did for us, not just present a set of Aristotelian syllogisms.

[Daniel C.]

James, GL makes exactly the argument as I present it, and so do you. You are both just adding the "they won't be receptive to logical arguments” bit, but that doesn't change the basic thrust of the argument, which is, "if you don't experience the trauma, then you can't help me."

Furthermore, I never made an appeal for logic, per se. You are reading that into my comments. I am, however, favoring reason over emotion, and, I believe, so does Pope Benedict given his recent lecture at Regensburg. That, however, doesn't mean that sympathy and compassion cannot inform reason. I just think that we should be cautious lest we allow those sentiments to rule the day. Many a sympathetic and compassionate person has accompanied the tragic victim of rape to the abortionist so that she need not live with what this brutal cretin forced on her.

BTW, fathers, brothers and husbands of rape victims are affected by the crime as well. Let's not ignore them in this discussion.

[James A. Altena]

Daniel,

No, it's not "if you don't experience the trauma, then you can't help me." Rather, they don't even get as far as that.

And you're over-reading my comments. We all favor reason over emotion; none of us supports sentimentality. The problem is how to gain an initial hearing with someone who is not open to reason. That is the point you are not addressing.