Feminists for life
MEEHAN, MARY
Milwaukee meeting FEMINISTS FOR LIFE SHUNNED BY THE MAINSTREAM THE meeting in Milwaukee last month was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a typical feminist conference. Mary Ledbetter of...
...But she said that there is seldom a positive response to this plea...
...One woman described how she had once been "pro-choice," but eventually reached a position of opposition to abortion...
...Participants indicated that they understood the painful ambivalence many women have toward abortion...
...Another conference participant said that she, too, had favored legalized abortion...
...But she asked a pro-life group for information and received the "famous color pictures of abortion...
...With no paid staff and no organizers in the field, it seems doubtful that the group can grow very fast or go very far...
...Another explained that, in reading some pro-abortion literature, she came across the statement that "no unwanted child should be born...
...But we support the Take Back the Night march because the cause is just...
...Another had been subjected to sexual harassment at work, as well as to rape...
...Can't we hold hands and see what we can do on this, where we agree...
...One noted that "I was born with spina bifida...
...Its check and ad were returned with a note that said the FFL goals were inconsistent with those of the organizing group, Women Against Violence Against Women (WAVAW...
...You're my kin - not just because you're a woman, but because you see injustice and you want to do something about it...
...When a young woman named Susan Maronek tried to obtain a charter for an FFL group at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, she encountered enormous resistance from student government leaders...
...If Feminists for Life can scrape together enough money to put a full-time organizer in the field, they can test their theory that there are many other pro-life feminists out in the countryside, waiting to be tapped...
...The personal witness given at a Friday-night "group sharing" was in many ways more interesting than the formal sessions...
...If they cannot do that, they can still serve as the little thorn in the side, the leavening, or perhaps the conscience-choose your own metaphor-of mainstream feminism...
...The pro-life feminists responded that, "We don't know which goals WAV AW feels we're inconsistent with...
...It insists on equal rights for women and shares the major concerns of other feminist groups...
...During the weekend, either in public sessions or private conversations, an observer could learn that one woman had been subjected to sexual abuse as a child and later had difficult bouts with alcohol and drugs...
...And there will be another national FFL gathering next June in Omaha...
...instead, "you find people turning their backs...
...You're like me...
...Collectively, the answer is less certain...
...Minnesota Feminists for Life last year tried to join a women's lobbying group, but was rejected because of its pro-life position...
...When spina bifida, or cleft spine, is detected through amniocentesis today, the affected child is usually aborted...
...Two women had special reasons for identifying with the unborn...
...Many of the women at the Milwaukee conference have children of their own, whom they treasure...
...MARY MEEHAN (Mary Meehan has written on abortion and politics for The National Catholic Reporter, Commonweal, The Progressive, and other journals...
...But then, she said wryly, "I became pregnant and...
...The sixty to seventy people who attended the Milwaukee convention were mostly Midwesterners, though a few came from the East and one from California...
...It has plenty of room for children, who were much in evidence at the Milwaukee meeting...
...seriously reconsidered my position on abortion and thought maybe there was a good reason why I should have one, since I certainly didn't want to be pregnant...
...They added, "We will not have an ad in the program book and we will not march under our own banner (we've been warned that our banner would provoke violence against women-us...
...No Pollyannas there...
...But it also covered "Adoption," "Infanticide and Euthanasia," "Child Abuse and Neglect" and "Constitutional Issues of the Unborn...
...Because so many of her members are activists ("have picket sign and sleeping bag, will travel"), they have impact far beyond their numbers...
...nor did she conclude that rape justifies abortion...
...About a dozen of the participants were men...
...Later the Minnesota FFL tried to place an ad in the rally brochure of a "Take Back the Night" march...
...Ingrid Smith, who ran as a peace/pro-life candidate in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1980, was told by a woman lawyer, "Listen: We feminists in Ann Arbor are well-trained...
...The Milwaukee conference, for example, included workshops on "Women in Politics," "Battered Women," "Women in Prison," "Employment Discrimination" and "The Female and Liturgy...
...Mary Ledbetter of Nebraska, alluding to the belief that it is better to have abortion than child abuse, remarked that "we don't advocate taking new brides out and killing them to prevent them from becoming battered wives...
...I wish everyone could see that - how much a tiny, one-pound infant fights to stay alive - how you think they've died and they've given their last gasp, and their heart starts beating again and they start breathing again...
...Their affirmation of life was all the more impressive because they had seen it at its worst, yet still thought its best was worth having...
...Several had been jailed...
...But they suspect that they can attract many Americans who are alienated by more militant forms of feminism...
...Some had gone through it themselves when faced with their own "hard cases...
...It was the first national meeting of Feminists for Life of America, a small but spirited group of women (and men) who believe they can be feminists and pro-lifers at the same time...
...Another woman had been raped: "I don't know how many of you share that experience...
...She did not become pregnant...
...Where do Feminists for Life go from here...
...you have to be willing to kill for the cause you believe in...
...FFL member Gail Grenier Sweet is putting together an anthology of pro-life feminist writing that should help keep the conscience keen...
...The organization was started ten years ago by two women who supported the Equal Rights Amendment and opposed abortion...
...They fight so hard to stay alive...
...She said she "learned a lot from that experience," including the fact that "the people on the other side aren't our enemies...
...Eventually she became a volunteer for Birthright, which assists women with problem pregnancies...
...The hostility of mainstream feminists, plus lack of money and staff, have kept Feminists for Life (FFL) low in numbers...
...Another had been the victim of wife-beating...
...Can't we embrace...
...They were adamant in saying that one could not be a feminist and a pro-lifer at the same time...
...Some have been through difficult pregnancies, marital troubles, divorce...
...Later her parents and a thirteen-year-old brother were killed in an accident, "and something just clicked in my head: No more carnage...
...Another group, younger but more visible than Feminists for Life, provides a good model for growth...
...Mary Ann Schaefer of Illinois referred to "abortion-favoring feminism" and said, "I sometimes call it 'terrorist feminism' because it reminds me of a terrorist activity...
...But they do not view pregnancy and child-rearing through rose-tinted glasses...
...Some participants in the Milwaukee conference described their experience of being "shunned" by mainstream feminists...
...Their brand of feminism rejects violence of all kinds, including the violence of abortion...
...This is Prolifers for Survival, a peace/pro-life group founded by FFL member Juli Loesch three years ago...
...It is strongest in the Midwest, especially in Wisconsin (national headquarters are at 1503 North 47th St., Milwaukee 53208) and Minnesota...
...Individually, they will keep working for women's rights and for the right to life...
...But if you sit there and wonder if you're going to be pregnant and do not want to be pregnant, it's very painful...
...They may be right...
...Because, college graduate that I was, I still subscribed to the blob-of-cells theory...
...She had been adopted, and her reaction was, "Hey, that's me...
...Because they are small in numbers, have no paid staff, and are ignored by the mass media, the pro-life feminists are little more than a small thorn in the side of mainstream feminism...
...They never asked us for a copy of our goals...
...The group is so loosely organized that there is no unified membership list, but optimists think it may have as many as a thousand members in the various chapters...
...All you've got to do-that's all you've got to do...
...One of them, Pat Goltz, was later "excommunicated" from the National Organization for Women because of her public advocacy of pro-life views...
...In the end she just couldn't find the reason she was looking for, "so I had a child that I released for adoption...
...It is difficult for FFL members to discuss the abortion issue with pro-choice feminists, because the latter seem to feel threatened by any kind of pro-life group...
...We wouldn't vote for you if you were running for dogcatcher...
...Certainly, our letters to them have offered nothing but support...
...But all I could say was, 'It's only six months...
...The Milwaukee meeting took place on June 4-6, just weeks before the long-foreseen failure of the Equal Rights Amendment...
...Maggie Guenther, a former national president of Feminists for Life, had a message for feminists who support abortion: "Look - You're my sister...
...Loesch built the group from a few friends to 1500 people through patient, full-time, live-off-the-land organizing...
...Someone will take that child.' And I was ready to say, 'God, it'll be me, if no one else.' " Some agreed with the woman who said that "I was born a feminist, and I was also born a pro-lifer...
...Members of Feminists for Life think that the ERA failed partly because it became identified - wrongly, they believe - with legalized abortion...
...She described a college student who had come to her about a problem pregnancy: "And she was a dancer . . . her body was her profession...
...And that blew my mind...
...Another woman, a registered nurse, said that she used to be pro-abortion, but was influenced by working in one of the first intensive-care units for infants...
...Nor are they naive about the problems of women in America...
Vol. 109 • July 1982 • No. 13
