Far too many people are falling for the lie that the best solution for a struggling woman who finds herself pregnant is to have an abortion. But abortion as a solution for women in poverty is a horrifying one, not only because it involves ripping an innocent child from the womb of her mother, but also because it marginalizes the already-marginalized to a terrifying degree—a degree to which the marginalized are eventually nonexistent. We live in a time when the solution is to tell frightened women, “It’s okay for your children to become waste; there is no room here for them anyway.”
Historically, most feminists from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, were strongly opposed to abortion. In supporting women, they sought to strengthen the family. They wanted to get men involved and attentive to women’s desires and needs; they fought for women to be able to keep their children if their husbands died. Women needed a voice legally to stand for their own families. The article “Marriage and Maternity,” attributed to Susan B. Anthony, states about the killing of the unborn: “Guilty? Yes, 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, for selfish gratification…drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime.”
The early feminists were pro-family. Today, feminists are often anti-family, anti-life and anti-woman. The kind of feminism seen throughout much of the Women’s March was appalling. These women force themselves upon society in precisely a way that disrespects women and actually degrades women’s bodies. Wearing hats of vaginas is not empowering. Carrying signs that say, “I’m a nasty b—-” is degrading. Where is any sense that our bodies are sacred? We have lost all sense of beauty as we are unable to see that our bodies are created in such a way to actually sustain and give life to another human being. This is not to undermine the fact that we can do other things besides being mothers, but motherhood is a very distinct part of being a woman—a blessing we treat as a curse.
Many women now believe they are above being mothers, scorning the sacred vocation of their own mothers who sustained and cared for them through the years of their lives. Such women often believe human beings have a right to escape suffering and a right to convenience. Academics and career-driven women who find themselves pregnant demand abortions for the sake of convenience and their own aspirations. Some women even hate the family with a passion, and they believe that being a wife and mother is an assault on women. Often the decision to have an abortion comes down to a woman’s desire to advance in her career, to continue on in her life without any “glitches,” as children now are called. But part of being human is to suffer the pangs that come with loving another human being, especially our own family and, specifically, our own children.
We must cry out for those children who were never given the chance to cry. We must encourage and recognize the women who sacrifice so much for love and the men who take this work on themselves, for it is man’s work to be a father, too, which has been largely forgotten in society. We must consider the women to whom abortion looks an easy option, who are scared, who are abandoned by men and worried about being a single mother, who are scarred by broken families. We must walk with these women and give them an empowering alternative to abortion—one that fosters relationship rather than brokenness and shame. We must lighten their load, help them carry their cross and say, “I am with you.” We must help them find a home, get a job and get to doctor’s appointments. We might help watch their children, get involved with foster care, help women find adoptive families or even become adoptive parents ourselves. We can no longer be blind—the answer for the struggling or conflicted must no longer be to silence the voices of the unborn. We must open our eyes to see the dignity and beauty in every life, no matter the circumstance, and be so moved to love, support and encourage the hurting.