Many Democrats, and certainly many of those who write here, apparently believe that it is not to be doubted that access to abortion is fundamental to the quest for equality among the sexes.
To be sure, this position seems to be held by today's feminist groups. But it has not always been so. I thought it might be helpful to quote some of the feminist movement's early leaders on the subject of abortion:
Victoria Woodhull (1838-1927) was the first woman to run for President of the United States - in 1872, after being nominated by the Equal Rights Party. Her candidacy attracted an unusual coalition of people, which included laborers, female suffragists, Spiritualists, and communists, among others. The members of the coalition represented diverse--and often conflicting--opinions. The one thing that they all agreed upon was that the government needed reform. They wanted a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people." They wanted a government with principles. Not only did the Equal Rights Party nominate the first female presidential candidate, they were also the first to nominate a black man, Frederick Douglass, for Vice President.
Mrs. Woodhull was an advocate for the 8-hour work day, graduated income tax, social welfare programs, and profit sharing. She was not an adherent of a Christian religion, but lived the principles of Christianity: she fed the hungry, cared for the sick, and visited prisoners. She believed that living those principles was more important to saving souls than preaching the resurrection of Christ.
This is what she thought about abortion:
"Every woman knows if she were free, she would never bear an unwished-for child, nor think of murdering one before its birth." Wheeling, West Virginia Evening Standard, November 17, 1875
"We are aware that many women attempt to excuse themselves for procuring abortions, upon the ground that it is not murder. But the fact of resort to so weak an argument only shows the more palpably that they fully realize the enormity of the crime. Is it not equally destroying the would-be future oak to crush the sprout before it pushes its head above the sod, as to cut down the sapling, or cut down the tree? Is it not equally to destroy life, to crush it in the very germ, and to take it when the germ has evolved to any given point in its line of development?"
Victoria Woodhull and Tennessee Claflin, Woodhull and Claflin's Weekly, 20 June 1874
Alice Paul (1885-1977) was a leading advocate for passage of the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This amendment granted women the right to vote. She was born a Quaker, went to Swarthmore College, and eventually earned a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1912. She helped found the Congressional Union for Woman's Suffrage in 1913; that organization morphed into the National Women's Party in 1917. Miss Paul was a leader of NWP.
Alice Paul, after the 1920 victory for the federal suffrage amendment, became involved in the struggle to introduce and pass an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). The Equal Rights Amendment was finally passed in Congress in 1970 and sent to the states to ratify. However, the number of states necessary never ratified within the specified time limit and the Amendment failed. She was also active in the peace movement, stating at the outbreak of World War II that if women had helped to end World War I, the second war would not have been necessary.
This is what Alice Paul had to say about abortion:
"Abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women."
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) was a principal leadder in the women's movement of the latter nineteenth century. She was an organizer of the 1848 Convention on Women's Rights and authored many of the women's movement's strategies and documents after that event. With Matilda Joslyn Gage, she wrote the Declaration of Rights of the Women of the United States, which her friend Susan B. Anthony presented, uninvited, at the Centennial celebration in Washington in 1876.
This is what Mrs. Stanton had to say about abortion:
"When we consider that women have been treated as property it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit." (In a letter to Julia Ward Howe, October 16, 1873, recorded in Howe's diary at Harvard University Library)
"There must be a remedy even for such a crying evil as this. But where shall it be found, at least here begin, if not in the complete enfranchisement and elevation of women?" (The Revolution, 1(10):146-7 March 12, 1868)
The practice of abortion was one more result of the "degradation of women." Stanton classified abortion as a form of "infanticide." (In Susan B Anthony's publication The Revolution, 1(5):1, February 5, 1868)
Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton (1808-1877) was a successful nineteenth century author. She was unhappy in her marriage and became interested in the amelioration of the laws regarding the social condition and the separate property of women and the wrongs of children. Her poems, A Voice from the Factories (1836), and The Child of the Islands (1845), sought to advance her views on these issues. Her efforts were quite influential in achieving the legislation she advocated.
This is what Mrs. Norton thought about abortion:
"Child murderers practice their profession without let or hindrance, and open infant butcheries unquestioned...Is there no remedy for all this ante-natal child murder?...Perhaps there will come a time when...an unmarried mother will not be despised because of her motherhood...and when the right of the unborn to be born will not be denied or interfered with." (Woodhull's and Claffin's Weekly, November 19, 1870)
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) was an author. According to Wikipedia, she "wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, as well as a full range of work across disciplinary boundaries separating philosophy, letters, education, advice, politics, history, religion, sexuality, and feminism itself. Once viewed solely in relation to the history of feminism, Mary Wollstonecraft is now recognized as a great writer across a range of genres, including journalism, letters, and travel writing. Her personal struggles as a woman and an author contributed to her articulation of the dynamic connection between political writing and political rights, both of which she argued had been "confined to the male line since Adam downward. Her writing challenges the male birthright, bringing to life a new form of political analysis. Today, she is celebrated for her early advocacy of women's equality and rationality, and for arguing against the degradation and subjugation of women justified by 'the arbitrary power of beauty'."
This is what Mary Wollstonecraft wrote about abortion in "A Vindication of the Rights of Women," which Susan B. Anthony admired enough to serialize in The Revolution. After decrying, in scathing 18th century terms, the sexual exploitation of women, she stated: "Women becoming, consequently, weaker...than they ought to be...have not sufficient strength to discharge the first duty of a mother; and sacrificing to lasciviousness the parental affection...either destroy the embryo in the womb, or cast if off when born. Nature in every thing demands respect, and those who violate her laws seldom violate them with impunity."
Finally, Susan B. Anthony, whose credentials as a crusader for the rights of woman are universally acclaimed, had this to say on the subject. In her publication, The Revolution, she wrote: "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 drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime!"
Just food for thought . . .