Month: September 2012

Elizabeth Blackwell was the first American woman to earn it M.D. her decision to become a doctor was prompted, at least in part, by her passionate opposition to abortion. After learning of the New York abortionist Mdm.Restell, she wrote in her diary:

“The gross perversion and destruction of motherhood by the abortionist filled me with indignation and awakened active antagonism. That the honorable term “female physician” should be exclusively applied to those women who carry on this shocking trade seemed to me a horror. It was an utter degradation of what might and should become a noble position for women… I finally determined to do what I could to “redeem the hells” and especially that one form of hell thus forced upon my notice.”

Ironically, at least one United States abortion provider named their clinic the Elizabeth Blackwell Center, despite the pro-life stance of their namesake.

Quoted in “Swimming Against the Tide: Feminist Dissent on the Issue of Abortion” edited by Angela Kennedy (Dublin, Ireland: Four Courts Press, 1997) 15

Original source Ross, I. “Child of Destiny: the Life Story Of the First Woman Doctor” (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1949) 88

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Mary Wollstonecraft

As early as 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft wrote “A Vindication of the Rights of Women,” which Susan B. Anthony admired enough to serialize in The Revolution. After decrying, in scathing 18th century terms, the sexual exploitation of women, she stated:

“Women becoming, consequently, weaker…than they ought to be…have not sufficient strength to discharge the first duty of a mother; and sacrificing to lasciviousness the parental affection…either destroy the embryo in the womb, or cast if off when born. Nature in every thing demands respect, and those who violate her laws seldom violate them with impunity.”

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Mattie Brinkerhoff

“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.” ,

The Revolution, September 2, 1869, pages 138 and 139.

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Sarah Norton

“Child murderers practice their profession without let or hindrance, and open infant butcheries unquestioned…Is there no remedy for all this ante-natal child murder?…Perhaps there will come a time when…an unmarried mother will not be despised because of her motherhood…and when the right of the unborn to be born will not be denied or interfered with.”

Woodhull’s and Claffin’s Weekly, November 19, 1870

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Elizabeth Cady Stanton

“When we consider that woman are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit.”

Letter to Julia Ward Howe, October 16, 1873, recorded in Howe’s diary at Harvard University Library

She classified abortion as a form of “infanticide.” The Revolution, 1(5):1, February 5, 1868

Also from Stanton:

“Dr. Oaks made the remark that, according to the best estimate he could make, there were four hundred murders annually produced by abortion in this county alone….There must be a remedy to such a crying evil as this. But where should it be found, at least begin, if not in the complete enfranchisement and elevation of women?”

The Revolution 1(10) 146-147 March 12, 1868

Cited in Rachel McNair, Mary Krane Derr, and Linda Naranjo-Hubbl. Pro-Life Feminism: Yesterday and Today (New York: Sulzburger & Graham Publishing, Ltd.)

Note: although Elizabeth Cady Stanton emphatically believe that abortion was murder, she was compassionate towards women who were in desperate circumstances. She successfully advocated for the release and pardon of a woman convicted of infanticide in the death of her newborn baby.

 

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Victoria Woodhull

“Every woman knows if she were free, she would never bear an unwished-for child, nor think of murdering one before its birth.”

Woodhull was the nation’s first female presidential candidate, who ran under the banner of the Equal Rights Party in 1872. Wheeling, West Virginia Evening Standard, November 17, 1875

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“We are aware that many women attempt to excuse themselves for procuring abortions, upon the ground that it is not murder. But the fact of resort to so weak an argument only shows the more palpably that they fully realize the enormity of the crime. Is it not equally destroying the would-be future oak to crush the sprout before it pushes its head above the sod, as to cut down the sapling, or cut down the tree? Is it not equally to destroy life, to crush it in the very germ, and to take it when the germ has evolved to any given point in its line of development?”

Victoria Woodhull and Tennessee Claflin – Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly, 20 June 1874

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