The co-founders of Feminists for Life of America, which was founded in 1972, did not realize at that time that we were not the original feminists for life.
Alice Paul, the suffrage organizer who had successfully led the movement to achieve the 19th Amendment, was an elderly woman when she explained to our co-founder, Pat Goltz, that the first wave feminists also opposed abortion. That prompted FFL researchers to track down the documentation of this fact, which we have widely shared with the pro-life and feminist movements.
One of the questions Paul asked was, “How can one protect and help women by killing them as babies?” She answered her own question: “Abortion is the ultimate in the exploitation of women.”
Paul is also well-known as the co-author of the original Equal Rights Amendment.
Author Sue Ellen Browder has documented how, according to the board minutes from the second meeting of the National Organization for Women, only 57 of the women remaining voted to support the ERA, but also voted to support abortion. This occurred after pro-life feminists realized the meeting had been hijacked, and most had left the room in the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C.
Paul, who arrived at the meeting late in the night, later expressed her deep regret to FFL co-founder Goltz that the ERA had been linked to abortion. In fact, she said that it had destroyed her lifelong work.
The ERA, as it was rewritten in 1972, denies the right to life of the next generation and does nothing to advance the unmet needs of women at highest risk of seeking an abortion, including the poorest among us, women of color, women working to achieve their post-secondary degrees, and working women.
It would enshrine abortion in our Constitution for all nine months — even during the birth of a child — and could force taxpayers, including Feminists for Life, to pay for abortions. As a nonsectarian and nonpartisan group, and as feminists who believe in peace, nonviolence, and justice for all, we are conscientious objectors. Abortion is a betrayal of feminism.
As Feminists for Life, we refuse to choose between women and our children — born and unborn. Instead, we focus on addressing the root causes that drive women to abortion, primarily a lack of resources and support that women need and deserve.
This year is the 2020 Centennial Celebration of the 19th Amendment led, without known exception, by pro-life women during a 72-year-long struggle. It was also known as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment. The suffrage leader, whose 200th birthday we celebrate this Feb. 15, was one of many publishers whose editorials opposed abortion, along with Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to be nominated for president of the United States.
Just as Paul and so many other pro-life feminists who came before us, FFL opposes abortion and, therefore, cannot support the Equal Rights Amendment as written.
Because women deserve better than this ERA.
Serrin M. Foster is president of Feminists for Life of America.
