In a recent Saturday Night Live sketch, a group of millennial women visit the historic home of suffragette Susan B. Anthony in Rochester, New York. Devout feminists one and all, they decide before leaving to invoke the ghost of Anthony by saying her name three times. Lo and behold, she appears, played by Kate McKinnon—bun, lace collar, and all.

Hilariously, the modern feminists find Anthony quite boring. She drones on about women’s rights and dignity, while they check their smart phones and argue about dinner. Until finally she says something that wakes them all up: “Abortion is murder!”

Doubtless many modern feminists were taken aback by this Saturday Night slip-up, given the show’s liberal leanings. But as Serrin Foster of Feminists for Life told National Review, all of the “feminist foremothers…without known exception, spoke out against abortion.”

That’s right. The suffragettes—Susan B. Anthony in particular—were fiercely pro-life, calling abortion a “crime against humanity,” “feticide,” and “child murder.” In fact, one of the primary organizations backing pro-life candidates today—the Susan B. Anthony list—does so in her name.

Given how close the unborn were to the hearts of the earliest women’s rights crusaders, it’s troubling to see how unwelcome pro-life women are on the modern feminist stage. We saw this discrimination vividly last week during the nationwide Women’s March.

Muffled but not quite absent were the voices of pro-life women. Several prominent pro-life organizations that applied as partners of the women’s march were either dis-invited or ignored, though several showed up anyway. Even the New York Times, in a surprising and praiseworthy piece, documented the virtual blackout of pro-life messages at the demonstration.

After booting a Texas anti-abortion group, Women’s March co-chairwoman, Linda Sarsour, told the Times, “If you want to come to the march you are coming with the understanding that you respect a woman’s right to choose.”

In other words, pro-lifers not welcome!

“This is what we conservative women live with all the time,” said Charmaine Yoest, senior fellow at American Values: “This idea that somehow we aren’t really women and we just reflect internalized misogyny.”

The Women’s March was, Yoest concluded, a “wholly owned subsidiary of the abortion movement.” And were it not for the unexpected coverage by the Grey Lady, these organizers may have succeeded in drowning out the pro-life message.

But as Bob Dylan sang, the times, they’re a changin’. Just this month, the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute reported that abortions in the United States have fallen to their lowest rate since Roe v. Wade. (Read more here.)

A lot has contributed to this decline, from pro-life legislation and ultrasound availability, to widespread contraception use and the acceptance of unwed motherhood. So the news isn’t all good. But when you consider the growing movement of young people who see the rights of the unborn as a social justice issue, the tired assumption that feminism equals abortion support really begins to falter.

Even pop culture and late night TV are straying from the pro-abortion script. And as Kathryn Jean Lopez wrote in National Review, this may be our chance to reintroduce an older, better women’s movement—one that didn’t pit the rights of mothers against the lives of their unborn children.

RESOURCES

Dissing Susan B. Anthony
Kathryn Jean Lopez | National Review | January 23, 2017

Views on Abortion Strain Calls for Unity at Women’s March on Washington
Sheryl Gay Stolberg | New York Times | January 18, 2017

Secular, Feminist, and Pro Life: The Message Goes Mainstream
John Stonestreet | BreakPoint.org | October 25, 2016

21 Days of Prayer for Life, pdf
prayer guide

This article was originally posted at

On March for Life, Eve of State of the Union, Pro-Life Leader Calls for Grassroots to Seize Momentum in 112th Congress

WASHINGTON, Jan. 24, 2011 /Christian Newswire/ — Today, in her first annual State of the Unborn video address, Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser called the 38th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision a unique opportunity for pro-life America. The address, available at www.sba-list.org/stateoftheunborn, coincides with the annual March for Life in Washington, DC.

“It’s not just a movement anymore. All the polls show this is pro-life America now,” Dannenfelser said. “It’s time for us to flex the muscle that we just flexed in this election and do everything we can in this Congress to protect human lives… I invite you to go to our website, www.StopAbortionFunding.com, and, if you’re not marching today, please take a moment to pray and act. Then, tomorrow night, watch that State of the Union message. See if the president decides to follow up on his promise [that tax dollars not be used to fund abortion in health care] because right now is the moment, a moment in time which we have not seen since 1973, where we have the momentum. We have the power. We have all the ability to save children’s lives by stopping the funding of their deaths. When he gives his State of the Union message, it should certainly include how he has or has not lived up to that promise.”

Dannenfelser’s address comes on the heels of the introduction of three bills aiming to end taxpayer funding of abortion – the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” sponsored by the Co-Chairs of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, Reps. Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Dan Lipinski (D-IL), the “Protect Life Act,” sponsored by pro-life champion Rep. Joe Pitts (PA-16), Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health, and the “Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act,” sponsored by Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN).

The “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act” creates a government-wide statutory prohibition on taxpayer funding of abortion. The bill also codifies the Hyde amendment which ensures that no federal funds pay for abortion under the Labor Health and Human Services Appropriations Bill along with several other pro-life riders that currently have to be considered every year. The “Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act” ensures that tax dollars are not sent to abortion providers under Title X family planning grants. The “Protect Life Act” amends the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) to ensure that no federal funds pay for elective abortion, prevents any federal agency from mandating abortion and protects the conscience of healthcare workers.

More than 40,000 pro-life activists have signed the SBA List’s Stop Abortion Funding petition lobbying to end taxpayer funding of abortion and abortion providers.

Dannenfelser will be available for comment on-site during the annual March for Life on Monday, January 24. Contact Kerry Brown at 703-470-1926 if you would like to speak with her.

The Susan B. Anthony List spent $11 million during the 2010 midterm election cycle. Overall, the SBA List was involved in 90 races including 62 wins and 28 losses. Successes included: defeating 15 of 20 so-called “pro-life” Democrats who voted for abortion funding in the health care reform bill; increasing the number of pro-life women in the House by 70 percent; filling the void of pro-life women in the U.S. Senate and increasing the number of pro-life women governors from one to four.

For further information, please contact Kerry Brown at (703) 470-1926

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