Pro-Abortion Activists Try to Rewrite History on Susan B. Anthony

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Oct 22, 2006   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Pro-Abortion Activists Try to Rewrite History on Susan B. Anthony Email this article
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by Marjorie Dannenfelser
October 22, 2006

LifeNews.com Note: Marjorie Dannenfelser is the president of the Susan B. Anthony List, a political action committee dedicated to supporting pro-life candidates.

Liberal scholars and pro-abortion advocates recently told Women’s eNews, an independent news organization originally founded by the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, that they are out to “reclaim” the legacy of one of America’s most famous suffragists, Susan B. Anthony.

Gloria Feldt, the former head of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, reportedly stated, "There’s absolutely nothing in anything that she (Anthony) ever said or did that would indicate she was anti-abortion."

An op-ed appearing in the New York Times last week said of Anthony, “She cast her vote always for tolerance, acting from a simple conviction: ‘For a people is only as great, as free, as lofty, as advanced as its women are free, noble and progressive.’ The bottom line is that we cannot possibly know what Anthony would make of today’s debate.”

Really?

Then how do Feldt and the author of the New York Times column explain an 1869 article published in Anthony’s newspaper, The Revolution, which denounced abortion as “child murder” and went on to say “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.”

Liberal scholars are now claiming Anthony didn’t write the article.

The new claim by pro-abortion activists that Susan B. Anthony was not pro-life doesn’t pass the straight-face test. Anthony’s own words speak for themselves – she called abortion ‘child murder.’ I don’t know how anyone can read that and somehow think Anthony would today defend abortion on demand laws that have taken the lives of over 40 million unborn children since 1973.

The idea that, if you don’t like what someone said, to simply claim they didn’t say it, is taking political spin to a whole new level. This latest attempt to distort the facts surrounding abortion is further proof the pro-abortion lobby is on the defense. They have reverted to rewriting history.

To see other early feminists in their own words, click here: Pro-life statements of early suffragists.