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NWSA Journal, Volume 21, Number 1, Spring 2009, pp. 178-203 (Article)
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What Are Pro-Life Feminists Doing on Campus?
LAURY OAKS
This article analyzes pro-life feminist claims with particular attention to
how the pro-life feminist movement attempts to shape college students’
attitudes about abortion and understandings of feminism. I explore
the messages within pro-life feminist literature and Feminists for Life
of America’s (FFL) College Outreach Program activist strategies since
the mid-1990s, focusing on its campus visits and “Question Abortion”
poster campaign launched in 2000–01. Pro-life feminism represents a
small social movement, yet offers a focus for critical analysis of how
pro-life feminists seek to frame abortion politics and contest the scope
of feminism as it influences younger women. FFL’s campaign defines
their anti-abortion ideology as the truly woman-centered, historically
feminist position. Pro-life feminists claim to represent best the interests
of younger women and feminism, and demonstrate an anti-abortion
strategy framed both as a challenge to and an embracing of the contested
field of feminism.
Keywords: abortion rights / reproductive justice / feminisms / pro-life
feminism / campus activism / Feminists for Life of America
Since the early 1970s, self-identified pro-life feminists in the United States
have argued that a feminist movement in support of abortion rights is not
in the best interests of women because abortion condones violence against
women and fetuses, causes emotional and physical suffering for women,
and contributes to the social devaluation of motherhood (see MacNair,
Derr, and Naranjo-Huebl 1995, 2005). My study of pro-life feminist literature and associated college outreach advocacy is motivated by the growing
visibility of the lead pro-life feminist organization Feminists for Life of
America (FFL), a student’s question to me in an introduction to women’s
studies lecture about whether all feminists “have to be” pro-choice,
and reports from women’s studies professors about students aligning
themselves with pro-life feminism.1
This article analyzes pro-life feminist perspectives with particular
attention to how one pro-life feminist organization works to shape U.S.
college students’ attitudes about abortion and understandings of feminism.
FFL started its Campus Outreach Program in the mid-1990s, and has been
working nationally to attract college students to the anti-abortion cause
by de-emphasizing divisive legal debates and presenting an anti-abortion
position as the truly woman-centered, historically feminist position. In
her presentation to college audiences, FFL President Serrin Foster notes,
“Without known exception, the early feminists condemned abortion in
©2009 NWSA Journal, Vol. 21 No. 1 (Spring)
What Are Pro-Life Feminists Doing on Campus?
179
the strongest terms” (2004, 29), and the FFL Web site features a “feminist
history” section and list of twenty feminists identified as pro-life, including Susan B. Anthony, Mary Wollstonecraft, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and
Jane Addams (2007a). Reflected in a FFL motto, true feminism is “prowoman, pro-life.” Pro-life feminists claim to represent best the interests of
women and feminism, and demonstrate an anti-abortion strategy framed
both as a challenge to and an embracing of the contested field of feminism.
Recent feminist scholars have examined conflicts within the abortion
rights movement. Some cite second-wave feminist advocates’ inadequate
attention to women’s race and class circumstances as motivating the
development of a multi-issue reproductive justice movement, led mainly
by women of color (Fried 1990; Nelson 2003; Silliman et al. 2004; Asian
Communities for Reproductive Justice 2005; Smith 2005). Other scholars
have analyzed extremist anti-abortion violence (Mason 2002) and women
anti-abortion activists (Luker 1984; Petchesky 1981, 1985; Ginsburg 1998),
and several studies explored women’s participation in right-wing organizations (Kintz 1997; Bacchetta and Power 2002; Blee 2002). However, few
outside of the pro-life feminist movement itself have examined pro-life
feminism and its advocates (McClain 1994; Jaggar 1994). Pro-life feminism
offers a case for analyzing how feminist abortion politics is framed and
how the scope of feminism is contested using a language and claiming a
stance of a more “authentic” feminism.
In the past several years, FFL has received national media attention,
enhancing its visibility. When Chief Justice John Roberts was nominated
by the Bush Administration to serve on the Supreme Court following
Sandra Day O’Connor’s July 2005 resignation, reporters working to identify his stance on abortion rights highlighted that he is married to a pro-life
feminist advocate (Rosin 2005). Lawyer Jane Roberts served as Executive
Vice President of FFL’s Board of Directors from 1995 to 1999, offered pro
bono legal counsel, and contributed financial support to the group (FFL
2005). In line with FFL’s campaign to identify first wave feminists as prolife feminist trailblazers, in August 2006, Carol Crossed, who serves on
the board of directors for FFL and Feminists Choosing Life of New York,
bought the Massachusetts historic birthplace home of Susan B. Anthony
(FFL 2006). Further, a May 2007 New York Times front page article featured FFL and two other anti-abortion organizations as representative
of woman-focused anti-abortion tactics (Toner 2007). In a July 2007 Los
Angeles Times article on some Democrats’ support for policy measures to
reduce abortions, FFL President Serrin Foster commented on collaborative
efforts with, “It’s not as exciting as arguing . . . But it’s the best possible
thing for women” (Simon 2007).
A core contention between pro-life and pro-choice feminist stances
is what abortion rights signifies for women’s place in society. From
a pro-life feminist perspective, the legal option of abortion supports
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anti-motherhood social attitudes and policies and limits respect for women’s citizenship; women come to see pregnancy and parenting as obstacles
to full participation in education and the workplace (Foster 1999b). In
this view, abortion is not a choice a woman makes, but an action society
dictates; legal abortion perpetuates an uncaring, male-dominated society.
However, that a woman’s full citizenship requires the moral and legal right
to control her fertility remains a dominant feminist position, popularized during the struggle to legalize abortion before the 1973 Roe v. Wade
Supreme Court ruling. A member of the 1969–73 underground Chicago
abortion service, Jane, explained: “The ability to decide when and if we
wanted to have children was integral to our freedom and full participation
in society” (Kaplan 1998, 34). This statement represents well an abortion
rights position.
At a 1994 national pro-choice conference in Chicago, a black women’s
caucus coined the term “reproductive justice,” which has a broader focus
than an abortion rights or pro-choice perspective (SisterSong 2006) and
positions the “fight for reproductive justice as a part of a larger social justice strategy” (Smith 2005, 134). The reproductive justice position is led
by women of color and contains a critique of individual choice, which has
been central to the pro-choice position, and “points out the inequality of
opportunity in controlling our reproductive destiny” (SisterSong 2006; see
Smith 2005). Using this frame, issues related to sexuality and reproduction
are multilayered and individuals must be viewed not simply as individual
decision-makers: “Reproductive justice exists when all people have the
economic, social and political power, and resources to make healthy
decisions about our bodies, sexuality and reproduction for ourselves, our
families, and our communities” (Asian Communities for Reproductive
Justice 2005; see also, Nelson 2003; Silliman et al. 2004; Smith 2005). A
pro-life feminist perspective on a woman’s pregnancy decision-making
also highlights how she is influenced by her social context. However, the
reproductive justice framework includes abortion as one part of “women’s
right not to have a child” (SisterSong 2006, 1), while the pro-life feminist
framework embraces an anti-abortion perspective at its center.
My writing, from the position of a white feminist scholar who advocates for reproductive justice, seeks to analyze critically pro-life feminists’
argument that an anti-abortion stand is a central feminist position and
consider what this conflict over “feminism” means for “feminisms.” This
analysis explores the history and historical claims of pro-life feminism,
FFL’s advocacy on college campuses, and pro-life feminists’ representations of feminism. I argue that college-age women are pinpointed for
special attention by pro-life feminism as potential important new voices
with education and standing that will help widen the scope of this pro-life
feminist discourse.
What Are Pro-Life Feminists Doing on Campus?
181
The Roots and Visions of the “Pro-Woman, Pro-Life”
Movement
Members of the women’s movements in the United States and Britain
established FFL and Women for Life respectively in the early 1970s, and
pro-life feminists have been active in Canada, New Zealand, and Ireland
(Gallagher 1987, 37; Kennedy 1997; Oaks 2000).2 Three edited collections
chart the development of the pro-life feminist movement’s ideologies and
make a case for the historical feminist roots of a pro-life feminist stance
(Sweet 1985; MacNair, Derr, and Naranjo-Huebel 1995, 2005; Kennedy
1997). Pro-life feminists also reach a public audience through FFL’s journal
The American Feminist, Web site, college outreach program, and the localand state-level FFL chapters. Individuals, organizations, and foundations
support FFL’s national office in Washington, D.C., at donation levels up
to a “Seneca Falls Society Circle” contribution of $10,000, and through
individual memberships.
The founding narrative of FFL asserts that the second-wave feminist
movement has wrongly represented abortion rights as a pro-woman position and that it unfairly uses the abortion rights perspective as a “litmus
test” for its membership. Pro-life feminist literature tells conflicting
origin stories, but the main point of each one is that a rejection of pro-life
feminists’ demand to have a voice within the National Organization for
Women (NOW)—portrayed as representing the women’s movement as a
whole—necessitated the establishment of FFL. Pat Goltz and Catherine
Callaghan reportedly founded the group in Columbus, Ohio when “NOW
purged pro-life feminists from its ranks” (Gallagher 1987, 37) or before
NOW revoked Goltz’s membership “for heresy” (Hentoff 1992). Ohio
NOW denied Goltz’s continued membership in 1974, yet national NOW
rejected the suggestion to bar her (Osbourne in MacNair et al. 1985, 152).
Offering a more defiant history, then-president of FFL wrote that Goltz
joined NOW “mainly to object NOW’s decision to promote the legalization and acceptance of abortion as a primary goal for feminism,” thinking, “ ‘They can’t do that to my movement!’ ” (Bottcher 1997a). Indeed,
pro-life feminists’ early mission extended beyond securing a voice and
representation within the feminist movement, to the task of rescuing it,
as seen in the original FFL declaration: “We pledge ourselves to help the
feminist movement correct its failures, purge itself of anti-life sentiments
and practices, and develop solutions to the problems that we, as women,
face” (Osbourne in McNair et al. 1995, 154–55).
However, pro-life feminists’ attempt to reform feminism has failed,
and there is scant evidence to support an anti-abortion author’s claim
that “the official pro-choice position of mainline feminism is beginning
to crack under the pressure of dissenting groups such as Feminists for Life
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of America” (Reardon 1987, 314). Pro-life feminism largely has shifted its
focus from claiming to seek a respected place within the mainstream feminist movement to offering an alternative and oppositional version of feminism, one that has found the anti-abortion movement a better ally than
the feminist movement. Not finding a home within the 1970s feminist
movement, pro-life feminists reportedly were welcomed by the Right to
Life movement; one pro-life feminist remarks, “NOW’s loss was the prolife movement’s gain” (Osbourne in MacNair et al. 1995, 153). Although
pro-life feminists appear to seek to maintain an identity separate from the
mainstream feminist and anti-abortion movements alike, their focus is an
oppositional position to the feminist movement from their pro-life stance.
Indeed, FFL’s policy stances reveal an attempt to align with the antiabortion movement yet set itself apart with “pro-woman” arguments.
The messages carried on the merchandise available at FFL’s Web site
represent these two positions: bumper stickers, bibs, and shirts offer
a standard anti-abortion message, “Peace Begins in the Womb,” while
coffee mugs feature early feminists with “historical photos and unforgettable quotes from Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mattie
Brinkerhoff, and Victoria Woodhull” (FFL 2007b).3 In keeping with the
broader anti-abortion movement, FFL’s policy agenda and its literature
rarely explicitly announce a position on a comprehensive abortion ban,
and the organization’s abortion policy action since the 1990s has focused
on endorsing limits on abortion. Signaling cooperation with a radical antiabortion group, the organization has filed amicus curiae (“friend of the
court”) briefs in Supreme Court cases in support of Operation Rescue’s
right to blockade clinics and proposed informed consent laws (McClain
1994; Brennan 1997). FFL also joined the anti-abortion campaign to outlaw
a late-term abortion procedure (termed by anti-abortion advocates as
“partial-birth abortion”), basing FFL’s opposition on the grounds that
the procedure has “devastating physical and psychological effects” for
women (Wolfgang 2000, 6). The organization further, though not often,
mobilizes its “pro-woman” position and lobbies on policy issues that
may not appear to be directly related to abortion politics. For example,
FFL served on the task force that helped design the 1999 Violence Against
Women Act. FFL emphasized “the needs of pregnant women and children
conceived through rape” in order to reduce the incidence of abortion in
such instances (Wolfgang 2000, 7). These examples show that FFL works
with anti-abortion advocates on a range of issues, and that it articulates a
“pro-woman, pro-life” viewpoint on policy measures that might influence
women’s pregnancy options.
“Pro-woman” is shorthand that FFL uses for “feminist,” and the premise is that abortion is never in a woman’s best interest. Throughout FFL’s
policy agenda and organization materials, abortion is considered antifeminist. On the FFL Web site’s “Pro-Woman Answers to Pro-Choice
What Are Pro-Life Feminists Doing on Campus?
183
Questions,” Foster replies to the question, “What if she just doesn’t want
it [pregnancy or a baby]?” stating, “It’s more complicated than that. We
can address each of her concerns working together for peaceful solutions
. . . We oppose abortion in all cases because violence is a violation of
basic feminist principles” (Foster 2006a). FFL refuses to admit that abortion may be in a woman’s self-defined best interest, yet the assumption
that all women are “coerced” into abortion is not substantiated by all
women’s narratives and experiences (see, Major et al. 2000; Ludlow 2008;
INS 2008; Lane n.d.). The logic of a primary FFL argument follows like
this: feminism is “pro-woman” and abortion is “violence against women;”
therefore, feminism is anti-abortion. FFL responds to the perceived affront
to a link connecting womanhood, motherhood, and feminism (caused by
“abortion rights feminism”) with its two registered trademarks: “Refuse
to Choose” and “Women Deserve Better.” The campus outreach program
is one strategy FFL has developed since the mid-1990s to increase its visibility, influence young women’s pregnancy choices, stigmatize abortion
as “a tragedy,” and build a stronger pro-life feminist constituency.
Strategies for Building a Pro-Life Feminist Future:
College Outreach
The effort to make public the pro-life feminist message and to encourage students to claim this position as expressive of their personal and
political identities is most explicit in FFL’s college outreach program,
established one year after the group’s 1995 reorganization. These advocates are mobilizing a “pro-life feminist” identity despite the hesitance
with which many young women identify as feminists, during what has
been labeled a “postfeminist” era and a time of “backlash” against the
gains of the second-wave women’s movement (see, Faludi 1992; Kamen
1991; Walker 1995; Dicker and Piepmeier 2003). In so doing, part of the
FFL project is to reclaim feminism on anti-abortion terms. At the same
time, national surveys of college freshmen’s political and social views
indicate that FFL’s anti-abortion messages may resonate with the growing
proportion of students who state that they do not support legal abortion.
In 1998, as FFL was in the early stage of their campus campaign, support
for abortion rights was at an all-time low among incoming U.S. college
students, 50.9 percent (UCLA Higher Education Research Institute 1999).
In 2006, the most recent year a question on abortion was used in the
annual survey by the UCLA Higher Education Research Institute, the percentage of incoming students identifying as liberal was the highest since
1975; the percentage of those identifying as conservative was the highest
since 1966. Within this atmosphere of heightened political polarization,
support for abortion rights differs by political stance: 78.4 percent liberal,
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31.8 percent conservative, and 56.3 percent middle-of-the-road students
surveyed support the right to abortion (UCLA Higher Education Research
Institute 2006).
FFL sees college women as “at risk” in two ways: they may face
unplanned pregnancies and experience “the tragedy of abortion” (FFL
2007g), and they are exposed to “abortion-choice feminist” rhetoric on
campuses (Pannell 2000a, 22). In 2000–01, when FFL’s poster campaign
was launched, 52 percent of abortions were obtained by women under age
twenty-five (Jones, Darroch and Henshaw 2002). Moreover, students are
“at risk,” FFL contends, because they are forming their beliefs and values
while being “inundated with an abortion-choice feminist perspective on
their campuses” (Pannell 2000a, 22), and hear only the one-sided message,
“Abortion is essential to women’s equality. It’s empowering; It’s your
choice” (FFL 1999). The organization maintains that students face censorship in women’s studies classes where they are “indoctrinated” with
abortion rights rhetoric by women’s studies professors who “conveniently
forget to teach 200 years of pro-life feminism” (Foster 1997). In these ways,
FFL portrays college students as a vulnerable group incapable of independent analysis of the abortion issue in large part because they are denied
exposure to pro-life feminist views.
FFL represents its Campus Outreach Project as “the other side” to
“abortion advocacy” campus organizations such as the Feminist Campus
Project of The Feminist Majority, Vox: Voices of Planned Parenthood,
Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice’s Spiritual Youth for Reproductive Freedom, NARAL Pro-Choice America’s Generation Pro-Choice,
Pro-Choice USA, Law Students for Choice, and Medical Students for
Choice (Clark 2004). To publicize pro-life feminist views, FFL’s College
Outreach Program is composed of campus visits, a Web site (http://www.
feministsforlife.org/, with text in English and Spanish), the quarterly
journal The American Feminist, and a poster campaign. I first discuss the
program’s campus visit strategies and messages, then turn to analyze the
poster campaign.
FFL Campus Lectures
Georgetown University was the testing ground for the College Outreach
Program in 1995 (Pannell 1999, 15), and the list of colleges Executive
Director (now President) Serrin Foster and her staff has visited is diverse.
FFL has visited public institutions that have a reputation for being “liberal,” such as University of California, Berkeley, and private, religiouslyaffiliated institutions, such as Catholic University. In academic year
2001–02, FFL launched a new poster campaign and Foster visited thirteen
campuses to present “The Feminist Case AGAINST Abortion” (emphasis
What Are Pro-Life Feminists Doing on Campus?
185
in original; see, Foster 1999a, 2001); Vice President Sally Winn visited
five campuses to deliver “Refuse to Choose: Reclaiming Feminism” (FFL
2002). In 2008, Serrin Foster remains available for campus lectures, and
FFL has expanded their Campus Outreach Program speaker list to ten (FFL
2008a). Speakers are drawn from different regions of the United States, and
include actresses, a business woman, a journalist, and health and social
welfare professionals who represent varied pregnancy, adoption, and parenting experiences.
FFL also convenes Pregnancy Resource Forums on some campuses,
designed to motivate students, faculty, staff, and administrators to challenge colleges and universities to provide child-friendly housing, on-site
child care, academic assistance for parenting students, and maternity
coverage in student health insurance. FFL’s Web site includes a model of
Feminists for Life University, a “dream campus” that is “a composite of
the best pro-woman, pro-parent, pro-child solutions devised by students
and administrators during FFL-hosted Pregnancy Resource Forums, plus
a few of our own creative ideas” (Foster 2007). Buildings and services are
named after feminists identified as pro-life by FFL, for example, “The Alice
Paul Library, named for the feminist who wrote the original Equal Rights
Amendment and called abortion the ‘ultimate exploitation of women,’ has
a sound-proof ‘crying room’ for parents” (FFL 2007c). FFL uses these efforts
(and dreams) to both buttress their argument that colleges discriminate
against pregnant and parenting students and to urge students to “refuse to
choose” abortion by working to create supportive college environments.
One of the College Outreach Program’s stated goals is to mobilize
members of college campuses to facilitate student parenting as a way to
reduce the incidence of abortion: “The College Outreach Program involves
a unique range of stakeholders: college students, faculty, administrators,
counselors, campus clinic staff and service providers across the ideological
spectrum—pro-life activists, pregnancy care centers, and even abortion
providers and advocates who agree that abortion is a tragedy and are
willing to work with us to address the root causes that contribute to abortion” (FFL 2008a; emphasis added). This type of advocacy reflects a broader
movement in the United States and elsewhere to build alliances between
those on “both sides” of the abortion controversy to discuss “common
ground” issues related to abortion (Joffe 1997; Wolf 1997; Ginsburg 1998;
Oaks 2000; Civic Practices Network n.d.). On one hand, this call to bring
a range of people together supports Foster’s contention in her lecture
“The Feminist Case Against Abortion” that “[i]t is time to set aside the
rhetoric and horror stories and fund-raising tactics and think again about
how we can help women in need” (Foster 1999a, 4). On the other hand,
the description of participants’ views (including abortion providers and
so-called “abortion advocates”) implies an agreement by all involved
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that “abortion is a tragedy”—a pro-life message that limits the potential
membership of an alliance.
Legal dispute over abortion is underplayed in the Campus Outreach Program. In an attempt to portray pro-life feminism as above the fray of abortion politics, FFL states that it aims to “reach the majority of American
women who are against abortion, but feel abandoned by both conservative
and liberal voices” (Pannell 2000a, 22; emphasis added). The assumption
that a majority of women are “against abortion” is not substantiated
in opinion polls that measure public support for legal abortion. Pro-life
feminists themselves note what they see as contradictory beliefs held by
a majority of Americans; abortion is seen as “killing” and legal abortion
is supported (Mathewes-Green 1997, 20–21; see also, Ludlow 2008).
Most important, the meaning of “against abortion” in FFL’s statement
above is unclear. The pro-life feminist message often fails to distinguish
between views on legal abortion, abortion as a moral issue, and abortion
as a medical procedure. Such distinctions are made by women, including
some of my students, who claim that they would never decide to have an
abortion themselves due to their own politics, personal morals, or aversion to the abortion procedure, but think abortion should be legal. This
position asserts both anti-abortion and pro-abortion rights beliefs (see,
Smith 2005, 119–20). FFL offers apparent logically consistent politics that
are anti-abortion and anti-abortion rights, and contains a “pro-woman”
stance that is distinct from the “fetal rights” stance of other anti-abortion
advocates (Toner 2007; see also, Mason 2002). In this area, the feminist
dictum “the personal is political” may be used against a feminist abortion
rights perspective (“Personally I oppose it; therefore, politically I oppose
it”). But this association is successful only if it is assumed that one’s
personal politics should be represented in policies that govern others.
Beyond the issue of legal access to abortion, the Campus Outreach Program seeks to offer to college students the political, ideological, and social
option of pro-life feminism as an authentic feminism and to promote to
young women the practical option of continuing an unplanned pregnancy
so that they can live out their “real” desires to avoid abortion. FFL does
not take a position on “preconception issues.” Foster’s “The Feminist
Case Against Abortion” delivers a message of rebellion in her contention
that “real feminists do not accept the status quo. Whether the problem is
a lack of financial or emotional support, women and men are capable of
overcoming obstacles to find non-violent choices” (Foster 1997).
Supporting this theme and FFL’s rhetorical tool of promoting an authentic anti-abortion feminism, the back cover of The American Feminist’s
winter 1999–2000 issue features a photograph of a confident-looking
young white woman and the message: “Challenge the status quo. While
members of the ’70’s women’s movement continue to promote abortion,
Feminists for Life is moving forward with woman-centered solutions in
What Are Pro-Life Feminists Doing on Campus?
187
the workplace, home, and school.” In these and other statements, FFL
proclaims that “real feminists” criticize and seek to change the social
norms that pro-life feminists claim lead women to choose abortion. The
“challenge the status quo” reference to the 1970s women’s movement
represents second-wave feminists as both “promoting” abortion and as
out of touch with young women’s political views and realities. This representation suggests that FFL is in tune with tensions between secondand third-wave feminist identities and politics (see, Kamen 1991; Findlen
2001; Hernandez and Rehman 2002; Dicker and Piepmeier 2003; Henry
2004; Jacob 2006; Walker 2007). In particular, FFL rhetoric plays on the
phenomenon of “disidentification” that women’s studies scholar Astrid
Henry has acknowledged: “[F]or many younger feminists, it is only by
refusing to identify themselves with earlier versions of feminism—and
frequently with older feminists—that they are able to create a feminism
of their own” (Henry 2004, 7). FFL urges young women not to embrace
second-wave feminism, which is most directly responsible for creating
the context of women’s life options today, but instead to identify with
some first-wave feminists in FFL literature, including the article, “Finding a Home in Today’s Feminism” (Nardelli 2004). The article does not
make reference to “waves” of feminism, but FFL does identify activists as
“early feminists” and “1970s women’s movement” members. Using this
rhetoric, FFL passes over current dialogues about third-wave feminism.
This language also underscores an anti-abortion connection between the
two types of feminism explicitly labeled as feminist: “early feminists”
and pro-life feminists.
Further, FFL reconstructs the “1970s women’s movement” position as
male generated and contrary to women’s interests. In Foster’s narrative
of the history of the women’s movement’s support of abortion rights,
NARAL’s Larry Lader persuaded the head of the NOW, Betty Friedan, to
support legal abortion.4 Foster states that Lader and NARAL co-founder
Bernard Nathanson, who later became an anti-abortion activist, laid out
to Friedan the political argument that a woman’s ability to control her
body should be central to NOW’s campaigns for educational, pay, and
employment equity.
Foster portrays second-wave feminists as unwittingly assuming a malegenerated, and therefore male-interested, agenda, and abandoning firstwave feminists’ vision of “a world where women would be accepted and
respected as women” (1999a, 2). She and other pro-life feminists criticize
NOW’s vision of gender equality on the grounds that it erases gender difference, devalues motherhood, and forces women to be “like men” to succeed in a male-dominated society (Foster 1999b; Sweet 1985). This gender
segregated perspective echoes other right-wing women activists (see Bacchetta and Power 2002; Blee 2002; People for the American Way 2007), and
demonstrates what sociologist Kristin Luker sees as the essential starting
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point that explains the worldviews of anti-abortion activists: “To begin
with, pro-life activists believe that men and women are intrinsically different, and this is both a cause and a product of the fact that they have
different roles in life” (1984,159). Further, Foster ignores that the call for
“women’s right to choose” was voiced by a range of organizations that
formed the women’s liberation movement (see, Kaplan 1998; Ross 1998;
Morgen 2002; Nelson 2003; Silliman et al. 2004; SisterSong 2006). She also
embeds within this history Bernard Nathanson’s conversion from abortion rights to anti-abortion rights advocate, suggesting the possibility of
audience members’ transformation.
Transformation of individuals’ views on abortion is part of FFL’s message, and FFL reports state that the reception of the organization’s lectures
on campuses has been mixed. Students opposed to the pro-life feminist
message at Washington University in St. Louis staged a counter-demonstration featuring state representative Joan Bray’s speech “Pro-life Feminism: An Oxymoron” and a response to Foster’s lecture by NOW president
Patricia Ireland (Pannell 2000b, 24). At Washington University, FFL staffer
Molly Pannell reports that Foster invited the pro-choice demonstrators
to her lecture, at which she spoke about the lack of campus support for
parenting students (2000b, 24). Pannell’s report concludes: “Many abortion
choice advocates and pro-life students then agreed to work with FFL to
develop resources for pregnant and parenting students on campus” (2000b,
24). This outcome is an example of FFL’s efforts to “cross the divide of
controversy and provide a unique solution-oriented approach to the abortion debate” (Pannell 2000a, 22). FFL’s advocacy rhetoric around campus
pregnancy and parenting resources frames these resources as lacking at
all campuses and as related to “the abortion debate,” though these framing strategies may not represent all campuses or individuals’ perceptions
about pregnancy and parenting resources.
The College Outreach Program “Question Abortion”
Poster Campaign
FFL’s intentions and strategies are demonstrated through an analysis of
images and messages aimed specifically at college students. At the beginning of the academic year 2000–01, FFL sent the eight stark, black-andwhite posters that make up its savvy “Question Abortion” campaign to
campuses nationwide; posters are downloadable through the FFL Web
site (feministsforlife.org). Each poster features a stylish photograph and
graphic design with the “Question Abortion” imperative, FFL’s logo featuring a calligraphy-type symbol for female (O+, shown here on its left side),
and the organization’s contact information. The photographs represent
women of different racial and ethnic backgrounds; the majority appear to
What Are Pro-Life Feminists Doing on Campus?
189
be white. Images of men are largely absent, though one poster addresses
male parental responsibility.5
The timing of the poster campaign’s release perhaps reflects FFL’s recognition that college campuses in fall 2000 were the sites of political action
around the U.S. presidential race, the outcome of which, it was widely
thought, would have important consequences for abortion rights. Highprofile issues during this period included the proposed late-term (“partial
birth”) abortion ban, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval
of the “abortion pill” mifepristone, and predictions about U.S. Supreme
Court appointments to replace those justices expected to retire. Reflecting
a strategy that presents an anti-abortion approach that differs from that
of extremist anti-abortion organizations (Mason 2002); however, only two
FFL posters directly address abortion politics. In fact, the organization
states that it is a nonpartisan organization and does not endorse political
candidates (FFL 2007j), which is remarkable given FFL’s stated commitment to policy change to improve women’s lives.
One of the “Question Abortion” posters features a profile photograph
of an aged Susan B. Anthony and a quote attributed to her, “Sweeter even
than to have had the joy of caring for children of my own has it been to
me to help bring about a better state of things for mothers generally, so
their unborn little ones could not be willed away from them.” The caption
reads: “Another anti-choice fanatic. The woman who fought for the right
to vote also fought for the right to life. We proudly continue her legacy.”
Without historical or textual context, the meaning of this sentiment is
open to a number of interpretations. Susan B. Anthony’s quote could refer
to women opting for abortion due to their poor social-economic conditions, yet it also could be interpreted as referring to poor maternal health
leading to unintended miscarriage. Pro-Life Feminism: Yesterday and
Today identifies this quote as Anthony’s retelling of a conversation she
had with a male friend, who remarked, ‘“[W]ith your great head and heart,
you, of all women I have met, ought to have been a wife and mother.’ She
replied, ‘I thank you, sir, for what I take to be the highest compliment
but . . .’ ” continued by the quote above (MacNair, Derr, and NaranjoHuebl 1995, 59–60). Framed this way, Anthony’s quote serves as a call
for all women, mothers or not, to care for “both unborn babies and their
mothers” (MacNair, Derr, and Naranjo-Huebl 1995, 60).
Pro-life feminists’ interpretation of early nineteenth-century feminists’
views relies on an historical analysis that contests other scholars’ research
on the context of these women’s perspectives, particularly the availability
of contraception, the American Medical Association’s movement to ban
abortion, the safety of gynecological and obstetric services, and cultural
attitudes and norms about women’s and men’s sexuality (Gordon 1976,
Petchesky 1985). Historian Linda Gordon (1976) notes that feminists who
organized the so-called voluntary motherhood campaign, which criticized
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the assumption that women should be seen as continually sexually available, disapproved of contraception and advocated abstinence, yet abortion
was not at the center of their campaign. Indeed, she writes that the voluntary motherhood slogan “expressed very exactly the emphasis on choice,
freedom, and autonomy for women around which the ‘woman movement’
was unified” (1976, xv), and that “it has culminated in a campaign for
the legalization of abortion in the 1970s” (Gordon 1976, xii). The pro-life
feminist argument that early feminists were “against abortion” dissociates
contemporary feminism from an abortion rights position to make possible
the demand that feminists must today “return to” an argument that access
to legal abortion hinders rather than moves forward women’s interests.
Again, this illustrates how FFL both uses and challenges feminism.
Also emphasizing this tension, another “Question Abortion” poster
charges, as does Foster in her campus talk, that the women’s movement
advocacy for abortion rights has not enhanced women’s lives, and has
escalated social problems and women’s subordination. The line “Question Abortion” is set under a photograph of a group of young women
carrying FFL placards. The text continues, “Abortion rights activists
promised us a world of equality, reduced poverty. A world where every
child would be wanted. Instead child abuse has escalated, and rather than
shared responsibility for children, even more of the burden has shifted to
women. Question Abortion.” The poster’s last line, “No law can make
the wrong choice right,” is one of the few that directly attacks abortion
law. This poster works in tandem with the previous one, placing blame for
an unsubstantiated increase in social problems on abortion rights advocates, while creating the idea that “life before abortion rights” was better
because abortion was banned.
The influence of young women’s lack of “pregnancy resources” on their
pregnancy decisions is the focus of two posters. The first features a photograph of a young, blond woman and reads, “You’re not alone anymore. . . .
If you’re pregnant and don’t feel like you have much of a choice, call these
people. They don’t want your money, they just want to help. They’ll stand
by you when no one else will.” A sidebar lists the names and telephone
numbers of six national pro-life affiliated pregnancy care organizations
and a Web address for a directory of local centers. Conveying a similar
message, a second poster portrays a young woman with light-brown skin
and her thoughts or words, “They say I have a free choice. But without
housing on campus for me and my baby, without on-site daycare, without
maternity coverage in my health insurance, it sure doesn’t feel like I have
much of a choice.” The text continues with a call for advocacy and an offer
of resources: “Feminists for Life believes that we should not feel forced
to sacrifice our children for an education or career. If you would like to
work on securing non-violent choices for women or need information on
pregnancy resources, contact us.”
What Are Pro-Life Feminists Doing on Campus?
191
These messages do not clearly signal that a pro-life feminist position
rules out abortion as an option for women. Instead, they stress that some
college women wrongly feel that abortion, not motherhood, is their only
option. In so doing, pro-life feminists attempt to recast “choice” as the
imperative to have an abortion. Social and economic pressure to not bear
or raise children has been felt particularly strongly in the United States by
poor women and women of color, and efforts to end barriers to motherhood
is part of the reproductive justice movement, which recognizes women’s
right to abortion (see, Solinger 2001; Nelson 2003; Silliman et al. 2004;
Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice 2005; Smith 2005; SisterSong 2006). FFL’s appeals to students to seek out pro-life resources carry
the promise that continuing an unplanned pregnancy is a positive choice
despite recognition of the hardships that it presents. Indeed, a main FFL
College Outreach Program message is: “You have choices. You have support. You have resources” (FFL 1999). That the “resource organizations”
FFL promotes are linked to the anti-abortion movement is not readily
apparent to those unfamiliar with this aspect of the movement’s work.
The poster creates a scenario in which a young woman feels isolated and
unable to imagine how she could care for a child without substantial financial support, feelings that indeed some women experience. The resource
organizations listed promote only the option of pregnancy, and actively
dissuade women from abortion.
Addressing a different aspect of pregnancy resources, the only 2000
poster that targets men carries a photograph of a young woman with features that imply Jewish ethnic identification and announces, “If she’s in
trouble, he’s in trouble too. When you conceive a child, you both enter
into an invisible contract to care for your daughter or son for the next 18
years.” Surprisingly, given FFL’s endorsement of adoption as an alternative to abortion, this message binds biological parents to their children.
This poster carries an underlying assumption that young women and
men will—or should—choose motherhood and fatherhood over adoption
or abortion.
The more obvious information this poster offers is that men cannot
easily escape the burden of financial responsibility: “Thanks to legislation that strengthens paternity establishment and child support enforcement, no longer can the father threaten a woman or abandon his child by
saying, ‘Hey, I’ll pay for an abortion, but I won’t pay for child support.’
Non-custodial parents who refuse to pay for the children they conceive
now face stiff penalties including loss of a driver’s license.” (The penalty
and enforcement, in fact, vary by state.) FFL’s support of such legislation
demonstrates the organization’s goal of changing the conditions that prolife feminists believe lead women to seek abortions, including a lack of
paternal financial support.
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A poster reading “Been there. Done that. HATED IT” (emphasis in
original), accompanied by a photograph of a young, white woman looking
toward the ground, addresses the issue of “repeat abortions.” The message represents abortion as a “tragedy,” and integrates an appeal to young
women to continue their unplanned pregnancies with a call to join FFL:
“No one wants to have an abortion, much less a second one. But if you
have had an abortion, you are at an even higher risk of experiencing the
tragedy of abortion again. While others are satisfied with the status quo,
Feminists for Life concentrates our efforts on prevention and less painful
alternatives. If you prefer action to rhetoric, please contact us.” Without
backing, this poster identifies all women as “at risk” for experiencing abortion, and labels those who have had an abortion as in a higher risk category.
The poster also obscures the fact that FFL does not advocate contraceptive
use as pregnancy prevention; contraception is outside of FFL’s mission
(FFL 2007i). For FFL, “prevention” means abortion prevention. Further,
the poster implies that all women should agree that carrying a pregnancy
to term is a “less painful alternative” to terminating a pregnancy, which
is not the case for all women (Major et al. 2000; Ludlow 2008).
One of the most confrontational posters addresses both the legal and
moral justification for abortion in what anti-abortion activists refer to as
the “hard cases,” in which women become pregnant through nonconsensual intercourse. Below a photograph of a young, white woman with long
blonde hair looking directly into the camera is the blunt question of both
the woman and an imagined fetus, “Did I deserve the death penalty?”,
followed by an appeal: “My ‘crime’ was being conceived through rape. So
the next time you hear people talking about ‘exceptions’ to abortion for
rape and incest, think of me. My name is Rebecca. I am that exception.”
This poster invokes the broader anti-abortion movement’s use of personal
testimony by “survivors of abortion” (see, Kintz 1997, 267–71). This message relies on the association of the “crime” of rape with the “crime” of
abortion-as-death penalty, implying that one “crime” does not justify
another. Pro-life feminist Patricia Casey (1997) refutes the argument made
by some feminists that if abortion is banned in the case of rape, women
will suffer twice, first by being raped, and second by being forced to carry
the pregnancy to term. Casey states that “the same argument can be made
about the dual violation of the woman, firstly by rape, and then by the
violence of abortion” (1997, 92; see also, FFL 2007h). The pro-life feminist
position attempts to persuade others that a woman who becomes pregnant
through the crime of rape or incest would find most tolerable continuing
the pregnancy.
In line with other anti-abortion organizations’ use of images of babies as
innocents, the last of the eight posters features a wide-eyed, white infant
hooded in a towel and looking straight into the camera. The text reads:
“Is this the face of the enemy? Abortion advocates pit women against our
What Are Pro-Life Feminists Doing on Campus?
193
children. But lack of emotional and financial support are the real enemies.”
This appeal attempts to counter feminist arguments that anti-abortion
advocates value the lives of “unborn babies” over women’s right to determine whether to carry a pregnancy, setting up a conflict between fetus
and woman (Morgan and Michaels 1999; see also, Toner 2007; Ludlow
2008). Turning the tables on feminist interpretations, FFL charges that
“abortion advocates” have created this antagonistic relationship. Abortion
is identified as a violent option, and women who terminate pregnancies
are represented as forced to engage in an anti-maternal act of “child sacrifice” in order to comply with a society that does not support pregnancy
and parenting. This poster captures several of FFL’s themes: abortion is
violent; women are forced by an uncaring, male-centered society to choose
abortion; and “pregnancy resources” can avert the “tragedy of abortion.”
In my assessment, the core of pro-life feminist advocacy on college campuses—through lectures, “pregnancy resource forums,” and the “Question
Abortion” poster campaign—is the attempt to strengthen anti-abortion
attitudes and dissuade women from opting for abortion through the messages that abortion is always a morally wrong, self-damaging, violent
choice and that a truly feminist, “pro-woman” position is anti-abortion.
The Campus Outreach Program is a main vehicle through which FFL seeks
to attract new members. In addition to representing a voting population,
those who have positions of political power in the future will be drawn
from the ranks of today’s college students. Indeed, FFL’s pro-life feminist
message may shape anti-abortion political and public opinion of the future.
Pro-life Feminism as Just Another Feminist Version in a
Spectrum of Feminisms?
Pro-life feminisms’ claims to feminism draw on contests within feminism
about the meaning of political and identity positions for women’s empowerment (see, Jaggar 1994b). As demonstrated in FFL’s College Outreach Program and other literature, pro-life feminists contend that they represent a,
if not the, “real” feminist position and seek to position pro-life feminism
as a legitimately recognized interpretation of feminism. I discuss these
arguments in turn.
Despite the reiteration of their “carrying on the feminist legacy” message, pro-life feminists point out that some differences exist between early
first wave feminists’ anti-abortion position and current pro-life feminist
politics. Pro-life feminists differentiate their politics from that of their
“feminist foremothers” by acknowledging that some early feminists
held eugenic views or “left unchallenged” biases against minorities and
immigrants (MacNair, Derr, and Naranjo-Huebl 1995, 142). These activists contend that “today’s pro-life feminism is more about inclusions and
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recognizes the need to seek out and listen to the voices of women from
diverse backgrounds” (1995, 142). The second, revised edition of Prolife
Feminism: Yesterday & Today includes the voices of “feminists . . . active
in social justice causes that seek to heal violence and oppression: peace/
antiwar work; death penalty abolition; environmentalism; and the rights
of people of color, GLBT [gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender/transsexual] individuals, and persons with disabilities, among others” (2005,
185). Pro-life feminists also state that whereas first-wave feminists based
their opposition to abortion on theological arguments, today many prolife feminists approach abortion as a human rights issue (MacNair et al.
1995, 141; 2005, 183).6 FFL states that it is a nonsectarian organization
and welcomes all people, regardless of religious beliefs (FFL 2007f). The
attempt to appeal to people who hold different religious and political views
can serve to build a larger movement and maintain a “cross-over” identity, one that bridges the pro-life movement, often publicly represented
as associated with politically conservative and religious positions, with
the feminist movement, which is represented as having politically liberal
and secular positions.
The transformation of pro-life feminist identity over time reveals that
the FFL call for a return to a pro-life feminist past is premised on accepting
some of the positions held by first wave feminist leaders while rejecting
other early feminists’ positions. Pro-life feminists are not merely “continuing 200 years of pro-life feminism” (as FFL contends on the cover
of The American Feminist, Spring 2000), but creating an anti-abortion
feminism that resonates with current feminist and social concerns.
The most theoretical arguments for the expansion of the feminist movement to include those who support anti-abortion politics are contained in
Kennedy’s (1997) volume, Swimming Against the Tide. These arguments
have been made possible by the diversity of feminisms and the recognition of conflict among feminists (see, Jaggar 1994a). Swimming’s editor
contends that pro-life feminism is as legitimate a feminist standpoint as
other, accepted versions of feminism. Pro-life feminists aim to gain recognition alongside feminist identities that include the more familiar radical,
liberal, Marxist, socialist, lesbian, Black, Chicana, Jewish, Third World,
women of color, environmental, global, and transnational feminisms along
with the less noted biblical (Scanzoni and Hardesty 1992), conservative
(Kersten 1991), and “new” (Catholic) (Manning 1999) feminisms. Pro-life
feminists argue, “If the aim of feminism is to provide justice for all women
then all women’s voices need to be heard . . . Marginalizing pro-life women
out of feminism silences women’s voices in the same way that they were
silenced by patriarchy” (Kennedy 1997, 1). In this way, pro-life feminism
uses the terms of second-wave feminism to support the recognition of its
inclusion within and beyond it.
What Are Pro-Life Feminists Doing on Campus?
195
But pro-life feminists, of course, are not the only ones concerned about
the representation of different versions of feminism under the umbrella of
“feminisms.” Feminist literary critic Susan Stanford Friedman argues that
we must “reverse the past pluralization of feminisms based on difference,
not to return to a false notion of a universal feminism that obliterates
difference but rather to reinvent a singular feminism that incorporates
myriad and often conflicting cultural and political formations” (1998,
4). She attributes the concept “feminisms” to Elaine Marks and Isabelle
de Courtivron’s 1980 anthology, New French Feminisms, and proposes
a singular, bordered feminism that has multiple sites and invites border
transgressions (Friedman 1998, 4). Friedman’s “locational approach to
feminism” emphasizes the fluidity of definitions of feminism and how
specific historical times and geographic locations “produce different feminist theories, agendas, and political practices” (1998, 5). Yet the applicability of Friedman’s theory of this singular, locational feminism to contests
over legal abortion—or any policy issue—is not readily apparent.
What Friedman’s model of a locational, singular feminism does not
account for are those feminisms that aim to subsume all others by announcing that theirs is the truly feminist position. Pro-choice and pro-life feminisms both do so. Pro-choice advocates link women’s freedom with reproductive rights. Marlene Gerber Fried states that “The pursuit of a full
reproductive freedom agenda is necessary if we are to build a movement
of and for all women” (1990, xiii). More strongly, a commentary in off our
backs to pro-life feminism contends, “The right to choose not to have a
child at a particular point, or not at all, and yet still be able to express our
sexuality, is not negotiable for feminists” (Wallsgrove 1996, 5). From this
stance, limits on abortion rights are an affront to all women; “criminalizing
abortion doesn’t just harm individual women with unwanted pregnancies,
it affects all women’s sense of themselves” (Willis 1992, 78). On these
accounts, feminism cannot admit anti-abortion rights views.
Simultaneously, and from their self-identified “minority” feminist
position, pro-life advocates point out that “mainstream” feminism does
not adequately represent their views, and therefore, should not assert the
claim that feminism speaks for all women: “The mere recognition of an
educated and articulate female leadership at the helm of the anti-abortion
movement would subvert the free and easy way in which abortion-rights
leaders purport to speak for all women” (Buckley and Rodman 2000).
Further, pro-life feminists’ argument that no woman would choose abortion if she was not “forced” to do so by social circumstance reflects the
assumption that all pregnant women would carry their pregnancies to
term, and is grounded in two primary discourses. The first centers on the
link between pregnancy, womanhood, and motherhood (see Luker 1984;
Ginsburg 1998). The second claim frames feminism as an anti-violence,
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human rights position that includes advocating on behalf of women and
“the unborn”: “The foundation of feminism is built on the basic tenets of
nonviolence, nondiscrimination, and justice for all. Abortion is discrimination based on age, size, location, and sometimes gender, disability, or
parentage. And it is often the result of a more insidious form of discrimination: the lack of resources and support that pregnant women need and
deserve” (Foster 2006b).
Simply put, pro-life feminists do not see a feminist movement that supports abortion rights as in women’s best interests, while feminists who
support abortion rights argue that the feminist movement must endorse
this right on behalf of the interests of all women. Further, FFL offers an
interpretation of “the foundation of feminism” that encompasses universal fetal personhood and rights. This set of assumptions is contested
by feminist scholars and reproductive justice advocates (see, Morgan and
Michaels 1999; SisterSong 2006; Ludlow 2008).
Conclusion: What are Pro-Life Feminists Doing on Campus?
I have argued that FFL’s Campus Outreach program challenges the broadly
held connection between feminism and an abortion rights position and
seeks to bolster students’ anti-abortion views by offering a pro-life feminist perspective. As a women’s studies professor and advocate of reproductive justice on a campus that FFL has visited, I have found it necessary
and interesting to answer “What are pro-life feminists doing on campus?”
by analyzing pro-life feminist claims and suggesting productive responses
that clarify FFL’s positions. I first address how feminists define pro-life
feminism, and then I consider FFL’s efforts to strengthen anti-abortion
views and attract advocates to their pro-life movement by focusing on
two points: 1) the pro-life feminist framework’s lack of space for women
to define the meaning of their pregnancies and their abortions, and 2) how
the reproductive justice framework provides a social critique of pregnancy
and parenting resources that goes further than the one FFL offers.
My analysis of FFL’s central claim—that their anti-abortion position is
feminist—points out that the organization’s campus outreach messages
posit a specific interpretation of feminism, one that is grounded in pro-life
analyses of “early feminists’ ” views—a nonviolence position that considers abortion unjustifiable because it represents violence against women
and “the unborn,” and assumes that all women’s abortion experiences
are tragic and avoidable. FFL’s interpretations of feminism attempt to
facilitate the organization’s anti-abortion position.
FFL’s activism contains an uncompromising anti-abortion view that contends that abortion is always wrong and rooted in violence against women
and their “unborn children” (see, FFL 2007h). This moral view dictates
What Are Pro-Life Feminists Doing on Campus?
197
how women’s abortion decisions and experiences should be perceived,
and does not account for a diversity of women’s perspectives. Women
articulate different types of relationships with their “fetuses/babies” and
a broader range of feelings about their abortion experiences than represented in pro-life and pro-choice discourses (Morgan and Michaels 1999;
Major et al. 2000; Ludlow 2008; INS 2008; Lane n.d.). FFL does recognize
that women’s social and economic circumstances influence her pregnancy
decisions, yet the organization does not acknowledge that women do not
always feel “coerced” into having an abortion and, therefore, ignores the
realities of some women’s lives.
Finally, I take up FFL’s Pregnancy Resources Forums and the 2008
Nationwide “Rally for Resources” campaign launched by FFL in March,
Women’s History Month, to address challenges faced by pregnant and
parenting students (FFL 2008b). I do see the need for greater support of
pregnancy and parenting on campuses—for students as well as staff and
faculty—and I recognize the efforts of those who have been working on
these issues on many campuses. The issues that FFL’s campus resources
work highlights are important: telecommuting, financial aid, child support, housing, maternity coverage, child care, and flexible scheduling (FFL
2008b). FFL’s work on campuses to enhance the experiences of pregnant
and parenting students can benefit campus communities. But advocacy
for pregnancy and parenting resources is not necessarily connected to
abortion politics.
The reproductive justice framework contains two arguments raised by
FFL: women often do not have adequate pregnancy and parenting support
and women’s reproductive opportunities are shaped by their communities.
But reproductive justice advocates’ perspective is more comprehensive,
and works toward ensuring that all women have: “(1) the right to have
a child; (2) the right not to have a child; and (3) the right to parent the
children we have, as well as to control our birthing options, such as midwifery” (SisterSong 2006, 1). FFL takes no stand on pregnancy prevention
(FFL 2007i), evading an extremely important issue for many college-age
women—“the right not to have a child”—which includes abortion, contraception, safer sex, and consensual sex. Ultimately, what FFL is doing on
campus fails to address some of the most critical sexual and reproductive
issues for women and presents views on pregnancy that cannot encompass
the reality of many women’s experiences.
Laury Oaks is associate professor of Feminist Studies, Anthropology, and
Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research
explores the cultural and social dimensions of reproductive politics in the
United States and Ireland. She is co-editor with Barbara Herr Harthorn of
Risk, Culture, and Health Inequality: Shifting Perceptions of Danger and
Blame (Praeger, 2003), and author of Smoking and Pregnancy: The Politics
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of Fetal Protection (Rutgers, 2001). She is currently co-authoring with
Jo Murphy-Lawless The Sally Gardens: Women and Sex in Ireland, and
conducting with Tania Israel a community-based participatory research
project on LGBT communities’ social support and mental health needs.
Send correspondence to [email protected].
Notes
1. I have many to thank for over the years having discussed and commented
on versions of this article. For their suggestions and encouragement, I thank
Doug English, Janine Holc, and Jo Murphy-Lawless; Women’s Studies colleagues Barbara Tomlinson, Leila Rupp, and Eileen Boris; and anonymous
reviewers for NWSA Journal and editor Rebecca Ropers-Huilman. An early
version of the article was presented on the panel “Feminisms for the Next
Millennium?” at the 2000 National Women’s Association meeting and revised
versions were presented in 2001 in the University of California, Santa Barbara
Women’s Center Faculty Lecture Series and the UCSB Choices in Life Lecture
Series, and in 2008 at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
hosted by Jean Williams, Chair of the Political Science Department, and Mary
Armstrong, Director of the Women’s and Gender Studies Department. I have
benefited from exchanges with students and advocates who hold positions
on reproductive politics that differ from my own, and I work to disagree
respectfully. I thank Vivian Barrera, Louisa Egan, and Talia Walsmith for their
research assistance during various early stages of this article’s development.
Research was supported by the UCSB Institute for Social, Behavioral, and
Economic Research and Academic Senate.
2. Statements about when Feminist for Life was founded cite 1971 (Koch in
Sweet 1985), 1972 (Bottcher 1997b), and 1975 (Kennedy 1997, 7). Osbourne
marks the “birth” of FFL as April 9, 1973 (in MacNair et al. 1985, 151–56). In
1977, Feminists for Life became Feminists for Life of America (FFL), with local
and state chapters. In 1994, FFL established a national office in Washington,
D.C., and FFL reorganized in 1995.
3. The FFL Web site includes common anti-abortion components, such as commemorating “the lives of women lost to legal abortion” (2007d) and offering anti-abortion, post-abortion counseling links to help “women who are
experiencing the aftermath of abortion” (2007e).
4. NARAL was renamed the National Abortion Rights Action League in 1973,
the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League in 1994, and
NARAL Pro-Choice America in 2003 (NARAL 2008).
5. The poster campaign has been modified and expanded. In some updates, the
text remains the same but the image has changed (often featuring a model of
a different race/ethnicity); one poster features a Black man sitting in a wheelchair and his perspective against abortion and disability (FFL 2008c).
What Are Pro-Life Feminists Doing on Campus?
199
6. Linda Gordon does not suggest that religious beliefs were a main drive in
feminists’ voluntary motherhood campaign (1976, chapter 5). Pro-life feminist
literature reflects a range of religious views, and also identifies the consistent
life ethic, viewing “human life as a continuum, from conception to natural
death,” as a pro-life feminist and early feminist approach (MacNair, Derr, and
Naranjo-Huebl 2005, 317). This refers to Catholic moral teaching promoted
by Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago, who elaborated the “consistent life
ethic” or “seamless garment” concept in 1983 as chair of the bishops’ Pro-Life
Committee (Fuechtmann and Bernardin, 1988).
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