NARAL calls Feminists for Life anti-choice

The assertion is laughable on its face.

Serrin Foster, president of Feminists for Life, responds:

The Washington Post noted that, within minutes of the announcement that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin had been named as Senator John McCain’s running mate, NARAL Pro-Choice America sent out a fundraising appeal as well as a text message to its supporters saying the vice presidential candidate is a "member of the anti-choice group Feminists for Life."

WE are anti-choice???

What’s so anti-choice about Feminists for Life’s work to promote holistic, woman-centered solutions—including housing, childcare, maternity coverage, and telecommuting options?

FFL is all about choices—so that no woman feels that she has no choice but abortion.

Which choice is it that NARAL Pro-Choice America doesn’t support? Marital parenthood? Partnered parenthood? Single parenthood? Or the various adoption options that birthmothers choose as best for themselves and their children?

Maybe NARAL forgot that this “anti-choice” feminist was in the room with their representatives working to give women support and choices by successfully supporting the passage of the Violence Against Women Act and enhanced child support enforcement as well as fighting against cuts in benefits for the children of poor women, which were later proven to have coerced more women to have an abortion.

Perhaps they also forgot FFL’s successful effort to secure healthcare for working poor and pregnant women and their unborn children through changes in regulations in the state Child Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Oh, wait, NARAL Pro-Choice America actively opposed our effort to give women support and choices.

Then there was my testimony before the US House Judiciary Committee in support of the passage of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, also known as Laci and Connor’s Law, which recognizes the loss of an unborn child through violence—against her choice.

Or maybe they are disturbed by the FFL-inspired Elizabeth Stanton Pregnant and Parenting Student Services Act that will help address the unmet needs of pregnant and parenting students on college campuses (that NARAL has been strangely silent about) and that enjoys bipartisan support?

No, NARAL, we are not anti-choice. We are pro-life, just like our feminist foremothers: Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and so many more.

We proudly remember our roots.

And we remember NARAL’s, too, and how NARAL’s co-founder Dr. Bernard Nathanson later became a pro-life activist. He told FFL’s past president Rosemary Bottcher how he and Larry Lader convinced the leaders of the ‘70s women’s movement to support abortion. The real goal of the movement was equality in the workplace, but Nathanson and Lader convinced them that children were an obstacle to success like men’s—and that abortion was the answer.

And we remember NARAL’s former president, Kate Michelman, telling the Philadelphia Inquirer (on tape) that abortion was “a bad thing.”

The early American feminists would have agreed. They knew abortion was not good for women and that it violated basic human rights—long before sonograms showed the unborn child in meticulous, undeniable detail.

This would all be too ridiculous for words, except for the sad fact that NARAL and like-minded abortion activists have the attention of millions of women who have the highest rate of abortion—college-age women.

Trying to marginalize our work to address the unmet needs of women and the “rest of the choices” by slamming Feminists for Life is just par for NARAL Pro-Choice America’s course.

Apparently they are satisfied with millions more women laying their bodies down to undergo a surgical abortion or swallowing a bitter pill called choice.

Apparently they don’t believe women when they say that lack of resources and support drive them to abortion.

Foster also notes that Feminists for Life is receiving greater visibility due to the nomination of Sarah Palin, a member. Regardless of whether Palin is elected, I think this is a good thing:

PS: As you might suspect, interest in Feminists for Life is high, and the phones are ringing off the hook, with interviews in the New York Times, Washington Post, Washington Times, Associated Press, NPR, The Hill, Catholic News Agency, Our Sunday Visitor, mentions on The Today Show, CNN, CBN, Christian News Service, Voice of America and many more.

Note also that Feminists for Life is non-partisan and has members across the political spectrum.