Saturday, August 31, 2013

Finding the organizations for people like me

So after I started finding out that apparently pro-life was somehow on the conservative and non-feminist side and vice versa, I decided to look for people like me. It actually wasn't that hard. I found Feminists For Life pretty easily and early on, and then I knew that I was right and that pro-life was a feminist thing, and learned that even the early feminists were pro-life. I also found this video where a woman says "I think the figure often used is 43%, approximately 43% of all Democrats are Pro-Life." I remember telling my mom that. In the video, she explains that pro-life Democrats tend to be more passive, and don't take on leadership positions, and so their voices are diluted. I can see that, as this is an area where a lot of people would still be in the closet, as it is not the majority and this is such a polarizing and controversial issue. I found some liberal and feminist pro-life quotes and stuck them in a notepad document that I've had now for years, though I only keep adding to it. I also found the Atheist and Agnostic Pro-Life League, which has members list of hundreds of members, a lot of whom are also liberal. When I got on facebook, the first pro-life page I found was searching for a liberal pro-life page and finding Pro-Life Liberals, and that became the basis for my connects to other people like me. I started to look around the web, and found that a lot of people also thought that considering what liberalism is about (helping the poor, the innocent, equal rights for all, hating all violence etc.) that pro-life would most definitely be liberal. I'm surprised it took me a while to find Democrats For Life of America though, but then again I keep finding more and more. I also found Secular Pro-Life (actually I think I first heard about them from this article), and that was great because not only did they advocate from a secular perspective, but they have a lot of science based stances, and you can probably learn from them with the science behind it all. Here is that post where I list a whole bunch of liberal, feminist, Atheist, and those related pro-life groups as well as other important resources. I'm so glad I turned out to be right, and there are also a lot of people who think like me as well.

Here is what I had on that notepad document

"The feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote to Julia Ward Howe in 1873, "When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit."

In his book (All Men are Are Brothers: The Life and Thoughts of Mahatma Ghandhi As Told in His Own Words), Mahatma Gandhi, the prophet of nonviolence, wrote, "[I]t seems to me as clear as daylight that abortion would be a crime."

Another great feminist, Susan B. Anthony who worked with Elizabeth Cady Stanton in the battle for women's suffrage wrote, "Guilty? Yes. No matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; But oh, thrice guilty is he who drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime!"

Finally, in an election message in October of this year, Alveda King Beal, the niece of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., said, "Please, I urge you, do not be distracted by political rhetoric. The most pressing civil rights issue of this season is the protection of the lives of the pre-born."

Former president Bill Clinton in a letter to the Arkansas Right to Life dated September 26, 1986 wrote, "I am opposed to abortion and to government funding of abortions. We should not spend state funds on abortions because so many people believe abortion is wrong."

Former Democratic presidential candidate Rev. Jesse Jackson spoke at the 1977 pro-life march in Washington D.C. and asked, "What happens … to the moral fabric of a nation that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience."

Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts said to his constituents in 1971 that, "abortion on demand is not in accordance with the value which our civilization places on human life."

Of primary importance to Anthony was the granting to woman the right to her own body which she saw as an essential element for the prevention of unwanted pregnancies, using abstinence as the method. In The Revolution, Anthony wrote in 1869 about the subject, arguing that instead of merely attempting to pass a law against abortion, the root cause must also be addressed. Simply passing an anti-abortion law would, she wrote, "be only mowing off the top of the noxious weed, while the root remains."[8] Anthony continued: "Guilty? Yes, no matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; but oh! thrice guilty is he who, for selfish gratification, heedless of her prayers, indifferent to her fate, drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime."[8]"

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