Wednesday 7 March 2012

Abortion is the ultimate weapon against women, pro-life feminist Fiorella Nash tells SPUC youth

The second address of this past weekend's 5th International Youth Pro-Life Conference was given by Fiorella Nash (pictured) on the subject of pro-life feminism. Fiorella is a researcher, writer and political assistant at SPUC. She is also an accomplished novelist, wife and a mother of three children. Fiorella's address dovetailed beautifully from the end of Fr Andrew Pinsent's address on human dignity, with a common theme of personalised ethics. Here are some paraphrased notes from Fiorella's talk:
  • Compare Christ's "This is My Body, given up for you" to the pro-abortion "My body, my life, my choice". Any slogan which contains the word "my" no less than three times is morally questionable!
  • Modern radical feminism is opposed to pro-life movement. It denigrates the female body and has a destructively self-seeking agenda.
  • The original feminists would not recognise modern feminism.
  • The original feminists opposed abortion. They held that neither women nor children should be treated as property.
  • A society which allows abortion denigrates and fails women.
  • Radical feminism, in order to justify abortion, ignores scientific evidence and uses delusional language. It is ridiculous to claim that wantedness can change 'a bundle of cells' into a baby! What supernatural power can turns a bundle of cells into a baby  - witch-doctory?! Certainly not an act of the will!
  • The killing of unborn human life has now been accepted as the norm.
  • A pro-abortion woman once said to me: "Logically, you're right - abortion is murder. But it's a murder we have a right to commit."
  • There is a right-to-choose dogma and women who oppose this ideology are bullied. Pro-abortion women describe pro-life women as 'anti-women women'. This is an incredibly insulting and patronising view of women. The suppresion of pro-life dissent by pro-abortion feminism would be considered fundamentalist oppression in any other movement.
  • Support for abortion is praised as 'dispassionate feminist analysis', whereas opposition to abortion is smeared as 'blind obedience to faith' or even 'Stockholm syndrome' among women chained to men.
  • Abortion providers see themselves as acting in the name of women, yet they refuse deliberately to tell women the truth about the nature of abortion procedures. They employ euphemisms such as 'gentle suction, 'remove the pregnancy' and 'products of conception'.
  • How dare the pro-abortion lobby claim to speak in my name or in women's name!
  • Abortion is the ultimate weapon against women.
  • Atrocities involving the deaths of women from abortion are not reported and are covered up. Feminists should be vocal in their opposition but instead give silent collusion.
  • Women sometimes react to revelations about China's one-child policy by saying that it is none of their business. What happened to the universal sisterhood!
  • There is now a serious gender imbalance om China and India, accompanied by an increase in sexual violence, wife-sharing and child-trafficking. Some groups will talk about these problems but avoid the abortion issue.
  • Ann Furedi, one of Britain's leading pro-abortion feminists, has argued that it is necessary to accept the choice of aborting a baby for the crime of being a girl.
  • The maternal mortality crisis is being used to justify abortion on demand. Yet, as several Irish obstetricians and gynaecologists said many years ago, there are no cases in which direct abortion is necessary to save a mother's life.
  • Some feminist voices have been raised against human cloning. IVF was lauded as liberating women, yet women actually bear the brunt of the process. A majority of IVF cycles fail to result in pregnancy. Women are being debased to the level of 'genetic contributor'. The health risks to women of IVF are being ignored. The IVF industry has not done sufficient research into the health risks of IVF to women, even after  30 years of the practice. This shows a callous disregard for women.
  • Among other issues, euthanasia is significant for women, as is the danger of sexualised images in advertising. Prostitution is tolerated or even exalted by the media, even though most prostitutes want to leave, have drug problems, suffer abuse and risk death. The suffering of these women is being not taken into account.
  • The pro-life movement must uphold bodily integrity, considering that women are often more vulnerable than men. We must challenge inflated emotional rhetoric, whilst acknowledging that pregnancy is life-changing and can be difficult for many women.
  • Pro-choice campaigners trivialise the real abuse of women.
  • Women's rights exist for the good of society, and not only for personal justice.
  • Nobody really believes that human beings have no dignity. Ask people who support infanticide: So would you stamp on the face of a new-born?
  • Abortion will not end until women, supported by men, rise up in defence of their unborn child.
Comments on this blog? Email them to johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk
Sign up for alerts to new blog-posts and/or for SPUC's other email services
Follow SPUC on Twitter
Like SPUC's Facebook Page
Please support SPUC. Please donate, join, and/or leave a legacy