Media Release 23rd April 2017
More than a century ago, the same women who fought for women’s rights and for the rights of slaves to be free also fought to protect women and children from abortion. Right to Life and the pro-life movement today stand with women to protect women and children.
Abortion betrays the basic feminist principles of nonviolence, non discrimination and justice for all. Abortion is a reflection that we have not met the needs of women—and that women have settled for less. Women deserve better.
Feminism was born of abolition. All people are equal. Not all choices are equal. We envision a better day, a day when womanhood is celebrated, mothers are supported, fatherhood is honoured and every child is cherished.
The feminist movement has the responsibility of promoting protection of the human rights of women from conception to natural death, the foundation right being the right to life. The feminist movement should be at the forefront in seeking protection of women in the first nine months of life in their mother’s womb. It was in the 1970s that the feminist movement was infiltrated by those who promoted abortion. It is important that those who are now promoting a dangerous anti life and anti feminist agenda are exposed and challenged.
Family Planning when founded in the 1950s was opposed to abortion. It now claims to represent the interests of women and genuinely believe that women will not be emancipated and truly free until the law is changed to make it no longer a crime to kill an unborn child. They also believe that the stigma associated with the killing of the innocent and defenceless should be silenced by making the killing of the unborn “a reproductive health service.”
Family Planning is aware that many women having an abortion are subject to coercion and domestic violence; why are they silent?
Right to Life advocates unconditional support for women who lovingly place their babies into the arms of adoptive couples. We applaud birthmothers, who say that “adoption can be an empowering option for women.”
We stand in solidarity with women who have been betrayed by those they count on the most, with women who have underestimated their own strength, with women who have experienced abortion and are silent no more, with young men and women who mourn their missing siblings.We mourn with those women with child who naively went to Family Planning seeking help and were offered ‘assistance’ and were encouraged to terminate the life of their precious child. We mourn with men who weren’t given a choice or who contributed to an abortion that they now regret.
All this is unthinkable. As we work together toward that vision, pro-life feminists hope that our sisters who promote abortion will one day realize that unborn children are not property either and that violence against them is equally unacceptable. Let us not have to spend another 150 years establishing that the children we bear are also persons.
An excellent piece, and I’d like to propose two further paragraphs:
“We also support those brave and courageous solo mums who reject abortion and are willing to undertake the responsibility of parenthood, despite intensive pressure from partners, some parents, and government departments. Parenthood under such circumstances is far more difficult than it should be and government policy needs to strongly reflect the value we place on parental responsibilities and support these young women unconditionally.
The mothers of disabled children and disabled women too deserve our support and solidarity. With partners or without them, these heroic women face the burdens of disability discrimination in healthcare, employment, education access and housing, along with their partners and children. New Zealand needs to stop “accomodating” disability discrimination. Intellectual disability, spina bifida and other medical conditions should never become excuses for abortion or euthanasia, and people with disabilities and parents of children with disabilities have every right to expect unconditional non-discriminatory government support.”
Not all feminists, though:
http://www.feministsforlife.org