On International Women’s Day, we recognize that abortion is not about equality

International Women’s Day is dedicated to celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. Unfortunately, a large part of society believes that women are incapable of achieving anything if they are not awarded the so-called right to kill their children through abortion.

Crediting abortion instead of women

Countless women, successful by the world’s standards, have credited their decision and ability to kill their own children before birth for their career success. Actresses Michelle Williams and Busy Philipps, both of whom rose to fame on the 1990s television series Dawson’s Creek, have each made such comments.

Philipps said in 2020 that she wouldn’t “be driving my hybrid car to my beautiful f***ing home, to kiss my two beautiful and healthy children and my husband who had taken the year off to parent so I could focus on my career” if she hadn’t had an abortion as a teenager.

Likewise, Williams said in a Golden Globes acceptance speech in 2020, while pregnant, that she “wouldn’t have been able to do this without employing a woman’s right to choose…”

The motivation behind empowering women in the last 50+ years is a good thing. Women should never be treated as incapable or as second-class citizens to men. But by justifying abortion as a key ingredient for a woman to reach her full potential, society’s acceptance and celebration of abortion has further degraded women and treated motherhood as a substandard level of existence.

Today, it is widely believed that motherhood and innocent children hold women back.

Legalized abortion was supposedly going to bring about “equality” between men and women, but it couldn’t — because abortion has never been about gender equality.

Gender perspective

In 2007, Ruth Bader Ginsburg disagreed with the Supreme Court’s majority decision to uphold the federal ban on the gruesome partial-birth (D&X) abortion procedure in Gonzales v. Carhart. She defended the procedure, saying, “[L]egal challenges to undue restrictions on abortion procedures do not seek to vindicate some generalized notion of privacy; rather, they center on a woman’s autonomy to determine her life’s course, and thus to enjoy equal citizenship stature.” (emphasis added)

In 2018, comedian Chelsea Handler, who had two abortions and enjoys telling other women to do the same, issued a press release regarding then-President Trump’s nomination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. She said, “Let’s be crystal clear: abortion rights, and by proxy, women’s ability to be equal partners in society, is on the line in this fight.”

When legalized abortion was forced on the United States in 1973, it began an era in the U.S. in which the inherent equality between men and women was still largely ignored; an era in which women were not lifted up as they should have been, but pushed down to the level of negligent and disgraceful male behavior.

Men who were abandoning their babies and the women they had impregnated were seen as having the power to do so because they were not physically carrying the baby. Legalized abortion was the supposed solution. If men could abandon their children, women could kill them. Yet, abortion allowed unprincipled men to continue to treat women as devalued objects and now that oppression is passed onto their children.

Both parents could now continue on with their lives, pretending as if a child had never been brought into existence. But the gender perspective in the law treats men and women differently, not equally. Fathers rightly face homicide charges for causing the deaths of their children in the womb (in most states), but mothers are celebrated for doing so. Men continue to be shamed for abandoning their children, while women are called empowered for killing them. Women are seen as being inept at having both children and a career, while it is expected of men. Yet the men who don’t want to abandon their children and don’t want their children to be aborted are allowed no say in the matter.

Motherhood and success

During her Supreme Court confirmation hearing in 1993, Ginsburg told the Senate Judiciary Committee, “If you impose restraints that impede her choice, you are disadvantaging her because of her sex.”

In her book, “Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights,” author Katha Pollitt said, “Pregnancy and childbirth… serve to restrict women’s ability to participate in society on equal footing with men.” Perhaps Pollitt doesn’t feel that home or family are important parts of “society,” and she appears to insinuate that the ability to bear children — to raise future generations of human beings — is somehow a lesser calling that “restrict[s] women’s abilit[ies].”

Children, long considered blessings in the Christian worldview, have become little more than obstacles to defeat.

This week, ‘American Idol’ judge and musician Katy Perry shamed a young mother based on this false belief. When the 25-year-old contestant announced she has three children, Perry responded, “You’ve been laying on the table too much.” She asked the woman, “Is this your dream? Is it now? If it’s not your dream you might need to leave because there’s a lot of dreams behind you.” She ridiculed the woman after she sang, saying, “It’s not her dream yet,” but she sent the young mother through to the next round of the contest.

Motherhood and professional success are not mutually exclusive. Mothers are not weak and incapable, and the pro-abortion feminist attitude of today would serve women better if it would embrace and celebrate female fertility and the amazing strength involved in carrying and birthing a child. With support from the father and other women, a mother’s chances of success would only grow. Instead, women have been abandoned to the philosophy of abortion — death for their children — as the not-so-secret weapon of supposed success.

Scholar Erika Bachiochi explained, “Sexual equality via abortion looks to cure biological asymmetry — the fact that women get pregnant and men don’t — by promoting the rejection of women’s bodies. Authentic equality and reproductive justice would demand something far more revolutionary: that men and society at large respect and support women in their myriad capacities and talents which include, for most women at some time in their lives, childbearing.”

Pregnancy is a natural part of life and to be able to become pregnant and carry a child is a gift. The only way for every human being to be afforded the inherent equality they are born with is to build a culture based on familial unity. A husband and wife — a man and woman — working together to raise their children and lead successful lives. Teammates, not competitors. Partners, not oppressors.

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