Erasing Women: How Both Sides Contribute to the Media Blackout on Female Pro-Lifers
There's no doubt that the pro-life movement needs to continue bringing women to the forefront. These women—women from all walks of life, from the grassroots to the halls of power—have a crucial role to play in one of the defining issues of our time. And we need to keep in mind that we live in a visual culture, where a picture can launch a good deal more than a thousand words. As I wrote in my book, a media storm over another photo, just a few years ago, caused its share of damage to the pro-life movement—damage that could easily have been avoided. More care needs to be taken to avoid getting into these "photo op from hell" situations.
But as all this happens—and it is happening, however slowly—mainstream institutions such as the media, the government, the schools, and the entertainment industry need to recognize that these women exist and have voices worth hearing. If women like Carolyn Maloney and Susan Thistlethwaite are going to do all they can to erase from view any women with whom they disagree, then they themselves are perpetuating the very marginalization they claim to be against. And that forces one to ask, just how "pro-woman" are they in reality?
Gina Dalfonzo is editor of BreakPoint.org and a regular contributor to Her.meneutics, Christianity Today's blog for women.
Copyright © 2012 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.
Related Elsewhere:
Christianity Today's earlier coverage of health care, contraception, life ethics, and politics includes:
Obama Does Not Widen Religious Exemption for Contraceptive Mandate | The burden to cover contraception shifts to the insurance companies, but an earlier exemption for religious groups will not change. (Feb. 10, 2012)
First They Came for the Catholics: Obama's Contraceptive Mandate | An open letter to evangelical Christians. By Timothy George and Chuck Colson (Feb. 8, 2012)
Evangelicals Mounting Concerns over Obama Administration's Contraceptive Mandate | Protestants are increasingly joining Catholics in protesting Health & Human Services mandate. (Feb. 2, 2012)
The Ironies of Obama's National Prayer Breakfast Speech | The President seems to be debating himself on religious motivations and the common good. By David Neff (Feb. 3, 2012)
Your Insurance May Already Cover 'Abortion-Inducing Drugs' | Health and Human Services ruled last week that insurance plans must provide contraception with no copayment. (August 12, 2011)
Reforming Health Care Reform | How states are blocking abortion coverage. (June 29, 2010)
Health Care Reform Enacted—Now What? | Activists react to the new health care law and reignite a movement for immigration reform. (March 26, 2010)
CT covers more political developments on the politics blog.
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Jonathan Brouillette
"Now we allow that life begins with conception because we contend that the soul also begins from conception; life taking its commencement at the same moment and place that the soul does" (ibid., 27). "The law of Moses, indeed, punishes with due penalties the man who shall cause abortion [Ex. 21:22–24]" (ibid., 37). - Tertullian, Early Church Father year 197
Jonathan Brouillette
Tertullian "In our case, a murder being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy even the fetus in the womb, while as yet the human being derives blood from the other parts of the body for its sustenance. To hinder a birth is merely a speedier man-killing; nor does it matter whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to birth. That is a man which is going to be one; you have the fruit already in its seed" (Apology 9:8 [A.D. 197]). "Among surgeons’ tools there is a certain instrument, which is formed with a nicely-adjusted flexible frame for opening the uterus first of all and keeping it open; it is further furnished with an annular blade, by means of which the limbs [of the child] within the womb are dissected with anxious but unfaltering care; its last appendage being a blunted or covered hook, wherewith the entire fetus is extracted by a violent delivery. "There is also [another instrument in the shape of] a copper needle or spike, by which the actual death is managed in this furtive robbery of life: They give it, from its infanticide function, the name of embruosphaktes, [meaning] "the slayer of the infant," which of course was alive. . . . "[The doctors who performed abortions] all knew well enough that a living being had been conceived, and [they] pitied this most luckless infant state, which had first to be put to death, to escape being tortured alive" (The Soul 25 [A.D. 210]). "Now we allow that life begins with conception because we contend that the soul also begins from conception; life taking its commencement at the same moment and place that the soul does" (ibid., 27). "The law of Moses, indeed, punishes with due penalties the man who shall cause abortion [Ex. 21:22–24]" (ibid., 37).
Jonathan Brouillette
St. Hippolytus of Rome, writing between A.D. 199-217, is absolutely scathing in his condemnation of those who procure abortion in order to avoid “embarrassment” or social liability: Whence women, reputed believers, began to resort to drugs for producing sterility, and to gird themselves round, so to expel what was being conceived on account of their not wishing to have a child either by a slave or by any paltry fellow, for the sake of their family or excessive wealth. Behold into how great impiety that lawless one has proceeded by inculcating adultery and murder at the same time!” (Refutation of All Heresies, 9:17.)