America’s future

Excerpt from "Viewpoint: Pro-Life and Feminism Aren’t Mutually Exclusive," Time, by Emily Buchanan. January 3, 2013--From its early beginnings, feminism was a young women’s movement. Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Alice Paul, Charlotte Lozier and so many others began their suffragist work in their 20s. These women — the original feminists — understood that the rights of women cannot be built on the broken backs of unborn children. Anthony called abortion “child murder.” Paul, author of the original 1923 Equal Rights Amendment, said that “abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women.” So the pro-life movement hasn’t changed the meaning of feminism, as has been suggested. It was the neo-feminists of the 1960s and ’70s who asked women to prize abortion as the pathway to equality.

Pro-life feminism has captivated a new generation of young women who reject the illusion that to be pro-woman is to be pro-choice. Gallup polling showed that among 18-to-29-year-olds, there was a 5 percent increase in those labeling themselves “pro-life” between 2007–08 and 2009–10. The past few years have seen the emergence of young leaders like Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life of America, who is responsible for organizing more than 675 pro-life groups on college campuses across the nation, and Lila Rose of Live Action, whose undercover video work has forced the abortion industry to confront and amend practices it cannot defend, as well as dozens of other future leaders who have assisted our organization as staff members and interns. Not only does this young generation of pro-life women shun the notion that abortion somehow liberates women; it views abortion as the civil- and human-rights cause of our day. Abortion is an injustice that permeates our society. Forty years after Roe v. Wade, we realize that a third of our peers are not here to share our progress and our hopes. It is our loss as well as theirs.

In his letter from a Birmingham, Alabama, jail, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” It is in this same spirit of King and the original feminists that young pro-life women are rising up in increasing numbers to say abortion is a radical injustice that affects us all and must end. Achieving this will require more efforts to extend our understanding of the equal rights of the disabled unborn, prevent rape and make this crime against women a thing of the past, expand adoption and make the benefits of modern prenatal care and specialties like fetal surgery more available, so that even younger and sicker children can be spared an early death. Our fight transcends elections and legislative battles because our fight is in our hearts. This is why, 40 years after Roe, our movement is still growing. We won’t give up; we can’t give up. Our fight is for life. Full story can be found here.

Commentary

CMDA Member and Care Net Pregnancy Center Medical Director Sandra Christiansen, MD: "Emily Buchanan and young women and men like her give us hope that while the socio-economic future may look bleak, the moral fiber of America is on the mend.

"Young women are rising up in increasing numbers to stand firm for the sanctity of life, closely mirroring the values promoted by our earliest feminists. Embracing the fullness of womanhood, these women unabashedly affirm the core of what makes us unique among humankind—the singular ability to be a mother.

"Modern women need liberation from the notion that abortion affords freedom. Of the neo-feminists, Frederica Mathewes-Green writes, 'A woman with an unplanned pregnancy faces more than ‘inconvenience;’ many adversities, financial and social, at school, at work and at home confront her. Our mistake was in looking at these problems and deciding that the fault lay with the woman, that she should be the one to change. We focused on her swelling belly, not the discrimination that had made her so desperate.'

"The neo-feminists of the 1970s turned their backs on women by promoting the idea that the child is the problem, and the only wise and progressive choice is to eliminate that ‘obstacle.’ But who could truly love and value women while simultaneously urging them to start a war within themselves that denies what every cell and strand of DNA knows——that she is designed and fashioned for motherhood? To do this is to tear the very fiber of her being; this is the tragic legacy of 40 years of abortion on demand.

"Our young people are showing us that there is hope for healing now and in America’s future."

Resources
January 2013 Christian Doctor's Digest Featuring:

• Gianna Jessen, Saline Abortion Survivor
• Priscilla Coleman, PhD, Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at Bowling Green State University
• Brian J. Stillwell, MD, Founding President and CEO of the Endowment for Human Development
• John Willke, MD, President of the Life Issues Institute

Life Support Featuring Lila Rose, Founder of Live Action
Click Here to Purchase Biology of Prental Development

Call to Action
Care Net pregnancy centers could not function without the support of dedicated volunteers. Medical pregnancy centers are in need of physicians who are willing to volunteer as little as an hour per week to write orders, read ultrasounds and provide oversight to the nurse administering the medical services. If God is calling you to get involved, call your local pregnancy center. To find one near you go HERE and type in your zip code, you will be given a list of the centers in your region. Or, you may call Care Net at 703-554-8753 or email to learn more about becoming a medical director of a pregnancy center.