What is Key to Feminism?

For John, BLUF:  zthe suthor asks some of the hard questions about responsibility.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The Hill to Die On

From The Chhicago Boyz, by Sgt. Mom, 20 June 2022.

Here is the lede plus one:

I swear, I have never been able to understand how the loud and proud Capital-F official feminists made the ready availability of abortion the hill (for the pre-born fetal humans, mostly) to die on.  Yes, I’ve pondered this in blogposts many a time.  The 19th century suffragettes certainly were what we would now cast as pro-life, and so was a modern iteration, IIRC.  (I used to get their newsletter.)  Why that one single aspect, out of all the others which would have a bearing on the lives of females; extended maternal leave and benefits, quality childcare … practically any other concern other than that of abortion on demand at any stage of pregnancy could be a rallying ground for those affecting an intense interest in matters of a particularly female orientation.  This, when birth control in so many forms (and for male and female alike) is readily and economically available.  This is not the 19th century anymore, not even the first half of the 20th.  Truly, it is a mystery why this particular cause and no other animates the radical fem-fringe.  I can only surmise that many of the radical and early feminists had abortions, felt horrifically guilty about it all and wished to drag other women into that particular hell with them as a matter of solidarity.

I am myself old enough to have known other women – my peers, mostly – who did for a variety of reasons, decide to take that route.  I understood that they had reasons they felt were valid and I sympathized without approval.  A woman who is pregnant and for whatever reasons, emphatically does not want to be – has a problem, a problem for which all the solutions are painful.  I did not judge then – but did feel the weight of their decision to go with whatever they felt to be the least painful.  No matter how you slice it, with abortion, you are cutting off a potential life – a viable heartbeat, little fingers and toes, a tiny face with eyelashes and a decided character, even in the womb.  So I have always approved of and supported those various enterprises which reached out a helping hand to the inconveniently-pregnant; anyone or any office which offered medical help, moral and actual support and encouragement to a woman who was inconveniently pregnant.  That was putting good intentions where they mattered; into actions which would offer an alternative to abortion.

A part of the power of pregnancy is the responsibility to be responsible.  The idea that abortion is a form of birth control does not appeal to me.  It is right up there with Eugenics as a wrong reason for abortion.

Is the purpose of Feminism to keep women in the workplace and not pregnant?  How will that work out in the long run?

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff