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.

Humbert of Romans on the Rule of St. Augustine

Some commentary by Bl. Humbert of Romans, the fifth Master of the Order of Preachers (1254-1263), on the Rule of Saint Augustine and its application to the Dominican Order.

On the apostolic life:

Saint Augustine shaped his rule on the model of the apostolic life, as is clear from what we sing and read, namely, that he began to live according to the rule laid down by the holy apostles. In one of his sermons he says: "We wish to live the apostolic life." Who doubts that the apostolic life is to be preferred to any other kind of life? With what splendor is that rule to be extolled which is modeled on such an example!

On the rule's "middle path":

Moreover, there are many rules which impose a multitude of physical observances; but the Rule of Saint Augustine is built more on spiritual deeds, such as the love of God and neighbor, the unity of hearts, the harmony of customs, and other such things. Who does not know that spiritual deeds are of more importance than physical exercises? The more a rule deals with spiritual matters rather than physical ones, the more worthy it is of greater praise. Likewise the Rule of Saint Augustine observes such moderation that it avoids the dangerous extremes of too many or too few regulations. It takes the middle path where all virtue lies.

On its suitability for preachers:

The Rule of Saint Augustine, moreover, is more suitable for preachers than for others. It is evident that preachers should be well-read. How fortunate it is that, for those who are well-read and so wish to be his eager pupils, this Rule is solicitous that no day pass without them taking out their books and pursuing those subjects which they are eager to learn or to teach. Likewise, since the Rule of Saint Augustine is derived, as it were, from the model of apostolic life, how completely should all preachers imitate it, since this rule applies more to preachers than do other rules.

Hurricane Gustav



Please keep everyone in the path of Gustav in your thoughts and prayers this week. It looks like the hurricane will be making landfall to the northeast of us, in Louisiana. It has weakened a bit since Cuba; because it is moving at a fairly fast rate (17mph?), it looks like it may not strengthen beyond a Category 3 before it hits land. Still, a very powerful storm.

The following email is from Bruce Trigo, the provincial moderator for the Dominican Laity of the Dominican Province of St. Martin de Porres:

Dear Brothers & Sisters,

As several members of our Dominican family in the Southern Province are once again being threatened by a hurricane(s) I ask for your prayers that the suffering to lives and property will be minimal. I bet many of you are a step ahead of this request and so I say thanks for the prayers and ask that you keep them going.

Mandatory evacuations have been called in for in most areas which affect all the Dominican communities in the Metropolitan areas of New Orleans. The only Dominican Communities unaffected by mandatory evacuations are the Hammond/Ponchatoula areas which are North of Lake Ponchartrain.

I also ask that you remember our family in Cuba as well. Just before the storm I received an email from Alberto Dorta, the Lay Provincial President of Cuba, asking for our prayers and letting me know that we were in their prayers as well.

While this quiet before the storm allows me to write you I suspect that after the storm I will not be able to communicate for awhile.