Here is Tish Harrison Warren at The New York Times:
We need to broaden the tent of feminism. If, in order to be a feminist, one cannot simply be against the oppression of women but also must affirm abortion or other left-of-center causes, then feminism does not actually exist as a movement. It is merely pro-choice progressivism marketed for ladies.
And that ultimately weakens the cause of feminism because it excludes a lot of women, especially young women. Younger pro-life women often see themselves as committed to both the protection of the unborn and the flourishing of women. In a 2015Ā pollĀ by the Public Religion Research Institute, more than half of millennial women who identified as feminists considered themselves pro-life (18 percent) or both pro-life and pro-choice (37 percent). Overall,Ā a majority of AmericansĀ (61 percent) are in favor of limiting abortion in some way.
āThe pro-life movement is changing. Many young activists identify as feminists,āĀ wrote Emma Green in The AtlanticĀ in 2017, āand reject a uniform alignment with the Republican Party, unlike their Phyllis Schlafly-style predecessors.ā According to recent polls,Ā a large minorityĀ (43 percent) of women identify as pro-life. This does not mean that these women reject vital causes of feminism, yet they are often excluded from and alienated by the current feminist movement.
Pro-life women need to be included within the feminist movement precisely because there is still much that needs to be improved for women. The United States is theĀ only wealthy country in the worldĀ (and only one of six in total) that does not have some form of national paid leave for new parents. TheĀ gender pay gapĀ has not improved in the last 15 years. Globally, women areĀ far more likely to experience poverty and hunger, as well asĀ domestic violence and homicide, andĀ one in three womenĀ in the world experience physical or sexual abuse. TheĀ vast majorityĀ of human trafficking victims are women and girls. AroundĀ 140 million girlsĀ are āmissingā as a result of sex-selective abortion. Women have less access to education than men and make upĀ two-thirds of the worldās illiterate population.
Read the entire piece here.
