Feminists For Life - References To 19th Century Feminists

References To 19th Century Feminists

Feminists for Life professes to "stand on more than two hundred years of pro-life feminist history," continuing the tradition of early feminists such as Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mary Wollstonecraft and Alice Paul, as well as others whose remarks they contend indicated opposition to abortion. FFL's president has asserted that, "Without known exception, the early feminists condemned abortion in the strongest possible terms." FFL's website features quotes from Anthony, but the context and meaning of such quotes has been disputed by Anthony scholars and pro-choice activists, One quote is taken from an anonymous essay called "Marriage and Maternity", published in Anthony's newspaper and signed "A", which Ann Dexter Gordon claims was not how Anthony signed her writings and contains views that conflict with her "known beliefs".

A quote by suffragist and lecturer Mattie Brinkerhoff, from an 1869 letter to the editor of The Revolution, appears on the inside front cover of almost every issue of FFL's magazine, The American Feminist:

When a man steals to satisfy hunger, we may safely conclude that there is something wrong in society—so when a woman destroys the life of her unborn child, it is an evidence that either by education or circumstances she has been greatly wronged."

FFL cites the writings of Stanton, a likely practitioner of contraception to enable family planning and an opponent of the Comstock laws restricting education about contraception and abortion, who began her fight for women's rights about 12 years earlier than Anthony. Known for her radical stance on many divisive issues of the day, Stanton helped organize an early and influential women's rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York. Stanton wrote,

"Let woman assert herself in all her native purity, dignity, and strength, and end this wholesale suffering and murder of helpless children."