Feminist Group Marches to Its Own Drum

They march under the banner of the feminist movement, but they are clearly out of step with most of their sisters.

The issue is abortion. One Kansas City-based national feminist organization contends that true feminists actually oppose abortion and have throughout history.

Feminists for Life of America, which claims about 3,000 members in 36 chapters, maintains that abortion oppresses rather than liberates women.

“Abortion is the result of male domination,” says Rachel MacNair, president of the group. “The main problem has always been that men set the terms for sex. Women need to have the power to set those terms.

“Abortion just sweeps that problem under the rug. It allows men to continue to be virtually free of responsibility for the results of their sexual activity.”

That argument is met with disdain by mainstream feminist organizations.

Feminists for Life explains its position with two basic premises:

* Feminists are people who believe men and women have equally valuable contributions to make to the world, and all human beings have inherent worth. They recognize the interdependence of all living things.

* Abortion makes pregnancy and childbearing a burden rather than a gift to be protected and honored.

But Patty Brous, executive director of Planned Parenthood of Greater Kansas City, argues that pregnancy often can be a burden for women.

“Having children when you are not prepared, or cannot feed them, or might be HIV-positive, is definitely a burden,” she says. “Abortion might be a freeing, life-giving experience for women under certain situations.”

Feminists for Life says giving birth could be less of a burden if the country had greater flexibility in the workplace for male and female parents, better prenatal and postnatal care and if men were made more responsible for child support--financially and emotionally.

Those are typical feminist concerns. But MacNair says her group has trouble getting the attention of mainstream women’s rights organizations.

“We can work with feminists who are really trying to improve women’s lifestyles,” she says. “Those that completely dismiss us because of the abortion issue, I have to question if they are feminists, in the true sense of the word. I have to question their real commitment.”

The executive director of the Missouri Citizens for Life--Western Region, says she originally questioned MacNair’s commitment.

“I was very suspicious the first time she came to a meeting,” says Mary Kay Culp of Kansas City. “I didn’t think feminist and pro-life could be in the same sentence.”

But Culp says she realized over time that the two philosophies are intertwined.

“I think they are saying some of the most intelligent, cutting-edge things that are being said in this debate,” she says. “They could be the bridge between the two sides, if the other side would just listen to them.”

But a representative of the National Organization for Women says it is impossible to be a feminist and oppose abortion.

“It’s definitely a contradiction in terms,” says Marian Davis, president-elect of the Kansas City NOW urban chapter.

“Our position on abortion is all about choice,” she says. “We don’t favor abortion. We’re in favor of women being able to make the choice. That’s what’s liberating about it.”

Women who do not have the right to choose cannot be free, and many men support that stance, Davis says.

“It is a freedom issue. We support it not because abortion is good or bad,” she says. “It’s a difficult decision that should be made between a woman and her doctor, without outside interference from judges and lawyers.”

Feminists for Life was started in 1972 but was mostly a discussion group until the mid-1980s, when it began to organize as an advocacy group.

It’s still a fledgling effort. MacNair works mostly alone in a small, sparsely furnished office in a building that also houses a crisis pregnancy center.

The group is funded by annual membership dues of $10 donations and the sale of brochures and bumper stickers. A separate education project takes tax-deductible donations. That fund is used to place advertisements in magazines and on radio.

MacNair says the women’s movement of the 1960s fooled people into thinking that supporting abortion rights was a feminist position. However, early feminists were opposed to abortion, she says. She cited quotes from Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood.

Stanton, who was one of the founders of the women’s movement in the mid-1800s, is quoted as saying about abortion: “There must be a remedy for even such a crying evil as this. But where shall it be found, at least where begun, if not in the complete enfranchisement of women?”

Brous of Planned Parenthood says she was not sure what Margaret Sanger’s position was on abortion. But Sanger “believed deeply in self-determination for women,” she says.

“I don’t presume to speak for Margaret Sanger or know what her personal thoughts were,” Brous says. “But she spent most of her life fighting to give women the right to control their fertility.”

Feminists for Life opposes making exceptions in cases of rape or incest. Abortion in such cases only compounds the pain already suffered by women, MacNair says.

But the group does not oppose abortions in cases where the mother’s life is in danger.

“In that case, you come up with the only thing that really balances out,” MacNair says.