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After the nomination of John Roberts to fill the Supreme Court vacancy left by Sandra Day O'Connor, politicians, political groups, and the press went hunting for where the nominee stands on hot-button issues, particularly abortion. Roberts left little paper trail in his two years as an appellate court judge, but first the Los Angeles Times, and then other papers reported that Roberts's wife, Jane Sullivan Roberts, is affiliated with the pro-life group Feminists for Life.

Roberts currently serves as legal counsel to Feminists for Life of America, and from 1995 to 1999 was executive vice president on the board of directors. Because of her affiliation with Feminists for Life, Roberts has been called "an ardent pro-life activist."

But while pro-life groups say they're on the same team as Feminists for Life, there are important differences between it and traditional anti-abortion organizations.

Feminists for Life is nonsectarian and nonpartisan, and while overturning Roe v. Wade is a goal of the organization, president Serrin Foster has said that is "not enough."

Feminists for Life goes beyond mainstream pro-life groups on issues like welfare reform that don't directly involve abortion, says Wendy Wright, senior policy director for Concerned Women for America. "They join with more modern feminists groups on other issues like violence against women and child support and some of these issues that the pro-life movement doesn't get involved in," says Cathy Cleaver Ruse, senior fellow for legal studies at the Family Research Council.

Feminists for Life is where the policy meets the pavement, Foster told Christianity Today. By addressing the forces that push women toward abortion, Feminists for Life tries to make abortion "unthinkable," not just illegal. Whether lack of support from a father, the need to work full-time, or a lack of resources on a college campus to care for a child, their feminist concern for the vulnerable motivates their concern for both the baby and the woman. Major legal pushes recently have included passage of the Violence Against Women Act, fighting the family cap on welfare, and supporting laws enforcing child support.

Feminists for Life sees itself as an extension of the first wave of American feminists who sought voting rights for women to, among other things, protect their children and pass anti-abortion legislation. "Without known exception, the early American feminists condemned abortion in the strongest possible terms," Foster says in her anthologized speech, "The Feminist Case Against Abortion."

"The early feminists understood that, much like today, women resorted to abortion because they were abandoned or pressured by boyfriends, husbands, and parents and lacked financial resources to have a baby on their own.

"Ironically, the anti-abortion laws that early feminists worked so hard to enact to protect women and children were the very ones destroyed by the Roe v. Wade decision 100 years later—a decision hailed by the National Organization for Women (NOW) as the 'emancipation of women.'"

Feminists for Life's campaign Women Deserve Better is an indication of their belief "that abortion is a reflection that our society has failed to meet the needs of women."

"One of the most successful things they've done is the Women Deserve Better campaign," says Wendy Wright. Feminists for Life "breaks the stereotype that pro-lifers are only a certain kind of person. They're highly educated, professional, and may not agree with other pro-lifers on a variety of other issues."

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July (Web-only) 2005, Vol. 49