A longer article about what makes a feminist. It’s hard to nail down and this conversation is going to continue for as long as there are women on the planet, but one thing remains clear:
And these divisions don’t begin to address the biggest bone of contention of all: abortion. The writer and movie director Nora Ephron answered the what-is-feminism quiz simply by announcing: “You can’t call yourself a feminist if you don’t believe in the right to abortion.” Many liberals agree. Yet most Grizzlies oppose abortion; Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle, who lost in November, even rejected it in the cases of rape and incest. Palin has praised young women who carry unintended pregnancies to term as “strong,” “smart,” and “capable.” It seems unlikely that the Grizzlies can successfully recast feminism as antiabortion, but surveys suggest that women have been growing less sympathetic to the proabortion position—so who knows?
I’m not sure I care whether feminism can be recast to include pro-life women. I am, however, confident that women will come round to seeing being pro-life as a reasonable position to take, regardless of their position on trillion dollar deficits, national defence or any other matter.
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Dan says
“…seeing being pro-life as a reasonable position to take…”
I would go further:
“…seeing being pro-life as the *only* reasonable position to take…”
The rational basis for the pro-choice position, to the extent that there is one (or, more precisely, to the extent that anyone of the pro-choice persuasion bothers to articulate one), involves defining morality on the basis of power, ie., asserting that the powerful may dominate or even exterminate the weak. And that’s truly rich coming from anyone who claims to be a feminist.
Jennifer says
Feminists for Life of America have publication after publication on the feminist case against abortion. There is a good article here on page 4 of their magazine from the winter of 1999.
http://www.feministsforlife.org/taf/1999/winter/Winter99-00.pdf