Equal Rights For Women?

Q. Who suffers more emotional consequences from no-commitment sex?

Q. Who suffers the long-term physical and emotional consequences of abortion?

Feminists in India are staunchly pro-life. Statistics in that country for 1000 aborted babies show only one being male. The issues here in the U.S. are more complex; but I believe every true feminist here must come to the same conclusion regarding women's rights.

Fredrica Mathews-Green, vice-president for communications of Feminists For Life of America, wrote an editorial recently explaining why she is feminist and pro-life. She wrote: "...pro-life feminists still charge that abortion is a convenience for sexually exploitative men, who find it easier to pay for an abortion than to be responsible for eht life they halped to begin. In fact, the abortion makes it easier for everyone -- the woman's boss, her school, her landlord, her family, her church -- to ignore her plight and the impositions it might cause them."

It's time feminists realized women are not benefited by abortion. I have seen a lot of women in my years of counseling [crisis pregnancy center], and I've been a woman all my life. There is pain for women in "no-strings" sex, and there is pain for women in aborting the "string" which often results. Some women seek help for this pain; some women simply live with it, and some squelch and deny it.

Regardless of what some say, I don't believe there are women who suffer no ill-effects from casual sex and abortion...we suffer greatly when we don't afford human life -- both our own and others -- the dignity it deserves...

Post Abortion Stress Syndrome is the term being used for the emotional scarring often experienced by women who have aborted. Symptoms include an inability to process the fear, anger and guilt surrounding the abortion, lack of trust, and trouble relating to children. Women have been known to attempt suicide because no one can tell them what is wrong with them.  Counselors will say, "Your abortion is not the reason you are feeling all this anger and guilt."

Are we doing women a favor by fighting for their right to do this to themselves? Are we doing women a favor by fighting for their right to kill unborn women? Are we doing a favor to post-abortive women by telling them, "You've done nothing wrong, there's no reason for you to feel bad."..?

It is time we women start fighting for our rights. Women's rights include the right to be treated with care and dignity, the right to receive commitment before they give themselves away, the right to be protected from the horrors of abortion, and most importantly, the right to life -- even life before that woman has emerged from the womb.

Tara Hart, Communications Director, Sav-A-Life