Abortion, Sarah Palin and Feminism: They're Complicated

Ah, carry me back to old 1960s. Women's lib, as many of us called feminism back then, divided women along the same fault lines that divide us today.

Decades ago a friend said to me: "I always thought liberation meant the freedom to do what you wanted with your life, even if that was stay home with your children."

Pretty good definition, and it just about summarizes the abortion debate. Freedom to become a mother or not. Freedom to be born or not. When those two freedoms are in direct opposition, whose freedom should be honored?

The baby's, says Sarah Palin. "You thought pit bulls are tough," Palin said at a recent Susan B. Anthony List breakfast. " You don't want to mess with the mama grizzlies."

Grizzlies are fierce, all right, and they will kill for their cubs. (Actually, they'll kill for the hell of it, too.)

The world is all a-twitter about Sarah Palin and the word feminist appearing in the same sentence. New York Times columnist Ross Douthat wrote: "However much heartburn Palin's 'mama grizzlies' give to those who associate feminism with the policies and prejudices of American liberalism, circa 1973, they should recognize their emergence for what it is: not a setback for the women's movement, but a happy consequence of its victories."

Even Palin's detractors have to admit she's putting some spit and polish on the tarnished feminist brand.

Politics Daily columnist Patricia Murphy said on this week's Woman Up video that whether or not it makes them uncomfortable, the Democratic Party will have to make room at the table for pro-life Democrats. In other words, a diversity of opinion.

But columnist Bonnie Erbé countered that "of all issues, [abortion] is probably the single toughest to have a diversity of opinion."

Indeed. Abortion is a litmus test for candidates, and some voters choose a candidate on that issue alone. Sure, Palin is a charismatic, good-looking woman, but even so, her enormous popularity can be traced to her abortion stance: "I am pro-life. With the exception of a doctor's determination that the mother's life would end if the pregnancy continued. I believe that no matter what mistakes we make as a society, we cannot condone ending another life."

For some, abortion is more a religious than political choice, and not just among conservatives. A believer in the Wicca religion made this argument in "A Woman's Sacred Right to Choose":

. . . no one makes choices in a vacuum. The opinions of others, of partners and doctors and friends and respected mentors of faith all come into play. . . . Feminism, however, is not a faith with a catechism and a belief-test for entry. . . . I know women who hold widely varying opinions about abortion who still work stalwartly to advance the project of women's overall liberation.

Prior to Roe v. Wade, pro-life rhetoric was for the most part confined to Catholic clergy, lawyers and physicians. Once abortion was legalized in 1973, the issue became a rallying cry for conservatives, evangelicals and lay Catholics too.

This one law galvanized conservatives, once dubbed "the silent majority" by President Nixon. Suddenly these quiet men and women weren't so quiet anymore. (A side note: I've complained that ovarian cancer will never get the attention or research funding that AIDS got because polite middle-aged women will not behave like outraged drag queens. But I digress . . .)

The pro-life movement noted and adopted some of the more effective techniques of the groundswell fight against the Vietnam War. The pro-lifers began to gather strength.

The Declaration of Independence proclaims that all men are created equal, and they did mean men. To be specific, white men. To be more specific, white men who owned land. The Founding Fathers could not have foreseen to a day when America would be one of the most diverse countries on the planet.

Our winner-take-all elections reinforce the two-party system and all but guarantee that third parties will fail. Therefore it's in every American's interest to have the Democratic and Republican parties be as inclusive, diverse, reasonable and centrist as possible.

The more strong women in the Republican Party, the better. Even if a candidate's beliefs vary widely from my own, she still stands as a rebuttal against centuries of oppression. You can take the girl out of the Democratic Party, but you can't take the feminine viewpoint out of the girl, regardless of her stance on abortion.

I have never conceived, so I cannot know what I would have done if I'd faced an unwanted pregnancy. But Woman Up has plenty more to say on the subject: Eleanor Clift in Carly Fiorina vs. Barbara Boxer: The Sisterhood and Abortion Politics, Bonnie Goldstein in Does Each Woman's Uterus Belong to Us All? The Limits of Sisterhood, Sandra Fish in 'Personhood' Abortion Issue Is Back on the Colorado Ballot, Luisita Lopez Torregrosa in Feminism: The Belief That You Own Your Body and Are Man's Equal, Sarah Wildman in Melinda Gates Can't Run From the Abortion Controversy and Marjorie Dannenfelser in Pro-Life and Pro-Woman: Sarah Palin's Case for Authentic Feminism.

A few months ago we here at Politics Daily were wondering what makes a post appropriate for Woman Up, and we found there was no easy answer. Women clock in at just over half the world's population. You could more easily list the issues that do not concern us than the ones that do.