Abortion has been that painful.
Abortion has been that painful.
‘A bortion is the ultimate exploitation of women.” That’s from Alice Paul, one of the leading suffragettes in United States history.
And yet: Not for the first time, Democratic women wore white at a presidential State of the Union address to advocate for abortion. It was a statement in favor of “reproductive rights” or “reproductive justice.” And they claim that it is in solidarity with the suffragettes, who, of course, helped ensure that women had the right to vote. But there’s a key historical denial there. The suffragettes opposed abortion.
My late, great friend, who was the Washington editor of National Review among other things, Kate O’Beirne, wrote a book, Women Who Make the World Worse. Despite the title, it also included women who made the world better. She was among them. In it, she pointed out, about leading suffragettes: “The Revolution, a women’s paper published by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, referred to abortion as ‘child murder’ and ‘infanticide.’” Kate highlighted facts that are not top secret: “In 1869, the weekly declared, ‘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 drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime.’” And: “In a letter to Julia Ward Howe in 1873, Stanton wrote, ‘When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit.’”
The history is clear. It was because of their advocacy of women that they defended the unborn.
Kate once wrote a column challenging women about the 19th Amendment. What are we doing with it? Even: Do we actually deserve it given what we’re doing with it? At the time, women had helped elect and feminists went on to defend Bill Clinton, who wasn’t exactly the model of chivalry.
The suffragettes led the way for women and children way before Roe v. Wade or the Mississippi Dobbs decision — and not in the way the women in white insist. They followed the science before they had sonograms. The State of the Union spectacle was infuriating because of the comfort Americans take in letting ideology be a release valve on display. Where does that leave women and families who want to welcome life but don’t know how? Who don’t have the resources? There are no incentives in politics for negotiating for any sense of the common good. If there were, we would hear about children in foster care and how we can help them. In a country that has many who purport to be believers in God, you would think there would be more care for the widows and orphans. And yet, instead, there is this radical insistence — sometimes in stubborn white — on pressuring women to have abortions.
The women in white are representing themselves — elite women and their supposed empowerment. Tell that to the 17-year-old going for a medical abortion today because her mother is insisting on it. Or the girl whose boyfriend is sitting in his car across the street from Planned Parenthood running the heat so he’s not inconvenienced. (I’ve seen them. Sometimes they don’t even bother to get out of the car when she comes out.) Now CVS and Walgreens in some states are dispensing abortion pills. Girls alone in their dorms and apartments are left to deal with the reality of the death of their babies. And it’s not safe, but the women in white don’t own up to that.
Kate quoted a rare pro-life Hollywood actress in her 2005 book. “‘Abortion is a reflection that society has failed women. There is a better way,’ Patricia Heaton, from Everybody Loves Raymond, said, in ads for Feminists for Life.”
In his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden reminded us yet again that he is Catholic, as if that excuses all manner of abortion-expansion and conscience offenses. Women deserve to hear from a Catholic man, or from women in white, something about the better way that the Church offers. As an example, Pope Benedict handed me a message in 2012 that had been around for 50 years to all the women of the world: “You women have always had as your lot the protection of the home, the love of beginnings and an understanding of cradles. You are present in the mystery of a life beginning. You offer consolation in the departure of death. Our technology runs the risk of becoming inhuman. Reconcile men with life and above all, we beseech you, watch carefully over the future of our race. Hold back the hand of man who, in a moment of folly, might attempt to destroy human civilization.” This is what the Catholic Church thinks about women. That we are that powerful and necessary. I wish the women in white realized it.
That’s the challenge Kate would pose to the women in white. That’s how we should use our votes. That’s how we should lead as mothers a culture desperately in need of tenderness. The women in white (perhaps oddly) remind me of the psalm about being washed whiter than snow. That could transform our politics. And the lives of those young women and families today who are struggling and need more from politicians than ill-informed white-suit exhibitions in the House of Representatives.
This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.