Sarah Palin is a member of a group called Feminists for Life which, on its web page, indicates that it is dedicated to challenging the status quo where women must choose between educational opportunities, motherhood and careers, all of which sounds fine, until one digs deeper.  Under the topic “Equality and the Workforce” one finds a series of quasi feminist history articles, all of which are peculiarly skewed to the perspective of parenthood, with articles on the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, challenges regarding Welfare to Work programs, and pros and cons regarding the decision to be a stay at home mom.

 

The group’s credo states: “Feminists for Life America recognizes that abortion is a reflection that our society has failed to meet the needs of women. We are dedicated to systematically eliminating the root causes that drive women to abortion-primarily lack of practical resources through- holistic, women centered solutions.”

 

For all this interest in providing the opportunity for women to choose motherhood as well as school or career, what you don’t find on their web site are any campaigns to encourage child care centers in schools or work places. There are no petitions or fund raising drives to build day care centers, or to pay caretakers for all those babies young women are encouraged to have, and there is no discussion of birth control or contraceptives, which might be used to avoid the need for an abortion to begin with.

 

Feminists for Life seems primarily interested in promoting birth at the exclusion of all else, and provides little evidence that they have any interest in helping young women who choose to become mothers, once those babies are born.  Like most “right to life” groups, they are very concerned with babies being born, but have no concern as to how those babies might actually survive.

 

Sources:

Feminists for Life: http://www.feministsforlife.org/index.htm

Ruth Rosen, AlterNet: http://www.alternet.org/election08/96991/