John Noonan, in his book A Private Choice:
“When strong and comprehensive antiabortion statutes were being enacted in 19th America, the militant feminists had been outspoken in their scorn and condemnation of abortion…”
Who wanted the liberty of abortion in 1970? Only a minority of any section of the population favored it, but the stablest and strongest supporters of the liberty were white upper-class males.”
John Noonan a private choice: Abortion in America in the 70s (New York: Free Press, 1979) 48 – 49
Quoted in Faye D Ginsburg Contested Lives: the Abortion Debate in an American Community (Berkeley and Los Angeles California: University of California Press, 1989) 10
The majority of the people involved in making abortion legal in the 1970s were men. The founders of NARAL, now called NARAL Pro-Choice America and formerly the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, which was responsible for legalizing abortion in New York prior to Roe versus Wade, were both men. Every member of the supreme court that decided Roe versus Wade was a man. It is often men who benefit from abortion. They can impregnate a woman without worrying about being responsible for the baby that could result. It makes them free to sexually use women. Women have to bear the brunt of the physical and emotional consequences of abortion. This is why nearly all of the early feminists opposed abortion as the exploitation of women.
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