Susan B. Anthony abortion dispute
Encyclopedia
American
suffragist Susan B. Anthony
's position on abortion
has been the subject of a modern-day dispute, centered not around Anthony's personal position on abortion, but rather around whether she worked or spoke against it and how she would fit into the modern debate over the issue
.
Anthony is widely known for her dedication to three issues: abolition
, temperance
and women's suffrage
. She was born in 1820 and raised by abolitionist Quaker
parents, later attending Unitarian
churches and finally becoming agnostic. She fought against the wrongs of slavery from an early age. In her mid-20s, she began to fight against alcohol abuse, and in her late 20s to work toward getting women the right to vote. This last effort became her primary occupation until her death in 1906. In 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment
was ratified, giving American women the right to vote. This achievement was the final form of the so-called "Anthony Amendment" first submitted to Congress by Anthony in 1878, and resubmitted every year until it finally passed. In 1979 Anthony was honored as the first American woman represented on circulating U.S. currency, the Susan B. Anthony dollar
, a memorial of her legacy as the tireless champion of women's suffrage.
Pro-life feminism
separated from the mainstream U.S. feminist movement in the early 1970s. The split was based on disagreement about abortion: The majority of second-wave feminists
such as Betty Friedan
said that open access to elective abortion was part of the political platform of feminism, but some Catholic and other feminists held that a belief in non-violence meant not killing the unborn child. They believed that the availability of abortion contributed to the devaluing of motherhood. Mainstream feminism's insistence on gender equality and abortion rights was seen by the pro-life feminists as having an undesirable masculinizing influence on womanhood, forcing women to be like men in order to succeed in a society dominated by men.
Several pro-life feminist groups such as Feminists for Life (FFL) (founded in the early 1970s), as well as conservative organizations such as Concerned Women for America
(founded in 1979) have used Anthony's words and image extensively to promote the pro-life cause, saying that Anthony was pro-life. Ann Dexter Gordon
, a 30-year scholar of Anthony and the leader of the Rutgers University
"Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony Papers Project", says "I've watched the anti-abortion movement make these assertions since 1989." In 1992, the Susan B. Anthony List
(SBA List) was founded; it is a political group with the ultimate goal of ending abortion in the United States by supporting pro-life politicians, especially women. The organization was named based on its founders' belief that Anthony was "passionately pro-life", and it also made extensive use of Anthony's words and image.
said "a scholarly disagreement ...is growing into a heated skirmish over the famous suffragist's position on reproductive rights." Stevens said pro-choice activists were "outraged over what they say is an unproven claim and concerned that their heroine is being appropriated by a community led by the very people Anthony battled during her lifetime: social conservatives
." Nora Bredes, the director of the Susan B. Anthony Center for Women's Leadership at the University of Rochester
in New York and a pro-choice Democratic
politician, said that she wished to "reclaim" Anthony's legacy. Author and columnist Stacy Schiff
said "there is no question that [Anthony] deplored the practice of abortion, as did every one of her colleagues in the suffrage movement." Schiff points out that abortion in the 19th century, unlike today, was a very dangerous and unpredictable procedure. She concludes, "The bottom line is that we cannot possibly know what Anthony would make of today’s debate" over the abortion issue, because "the terms do not translate".
The modern sense of "pro-life" is defined as the political and ethical opposition to elective abortion, and support for its legal prohibition or restriction. In answer to the position that Anthony was pro-life, Gordon wrote that "she never voiced an opinion about the sanctity of fetal life ... and she never voiced an opinion about using the power of the state to require that pregnancies be brought to term." Gloria Feldt, a former head of Planned Parenthood
, said of Anthony that "there's absolutely nothing in anything that she ever said or did that would indicate she was anti-abortion." Gordon said that the issue of abortion was "a political hot potato", one to avoid; it distracted from Anthony's main goal of gaining women the vote. Gordon said the suffrage movement in the 19th century held political and social views—"secularism
, the separation of church and state
, and women's self-ownership" (women's autonomy)—that do not fit with modern pro-life concerns.
In early 2007, Cat Clark, an editor of FFL's quarterly magazine, acknowledged that Anthony spent little time on the subject of abortion, but cited FFL researcher Mary Krane Derr who said Anthony's "stance on abortion" was integral to "her commitment to undo gender oppression".
In May 2010, Sarah Palin
addressed the SBA List, saying Anthony was one of her heroes, and that Palin's own opposition to abortion rights was influenced by her "feminist foremothers". She said "Organizations like the Susan B. Anthony List are returning the woman's movement back to its original roots, back to what it was all about in the beginning. You remind us of the earliest leaders of the woman's rights movement: They were pro-life." In response to this, journalist Lynn Sherr
, author of Failure is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words, joined with Gordon to write an opinion piece for The Washington Post. They said: "We have read every single word that this very voluble—and endlessly political—woman left behind. Our conclusion: Anthony spent no time on the politics of abortion. It was of no interest to her, despite living in a society (and a family) where women aborted unwanted pregnancies." Sherr and Gordon said that their argument "is not over abortion rights. Rather it is about the erosion of accuracy in history and journalism."
SBA List president Marjorie Dannenfelser published her response to Sherr and Gordon, saying that their conclusion "that abortion was nowhere on [Anthony's] radar" was "unfounded on many levels". She said that in Anthony's day, "abortion wasn't even a hot political issue ...Abortion simply wasn't up for debate at a time when society itself was firmly against the practice." She quoted Anthony's business partner, Elizabeth Cady Stanton
, who referred to abortion as "infanticide" and said, "When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit." She said that while the pro-life cause was not "the issue that earned Susan B. Anthony her stripes in American history books, historians would be wrong to conclude that Anthony was agnostic on the issue of abortion."
, a newspaper owned for two years by Anthony and edited by fellow women's rights activists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Parker Pillsbury
. The essay is against abortion and the societal problems which cause it, but the author believes any proposed law prohibiting abortion would fail to "reach the root of the evil, and destroy it." The cited text includes this admonition against abortion:
The piece was signed simply "A." Because it was published in The Revolution, Dannenfelser wrote that "most logical people would agree, then, that writings signed by 'A.' in a paper that Anthony funded and published were a reflection of her own opinions." Responding to the equating of Anthony's beliefs with those voiced in The Revolution, Gordon said that people "have a hard time wrapping their minds around the fact that The Revolution was a paper of debate—presenting both sides of an issue." Gordon, whose project at Rutgers has examined 14,000 documents related to Stanton and Anthony, wrote that there is no proof that Anthony wrote the cited essay since she was not known to sign "A.". However, Derr says Anthony was known to sign "S.B.A." and was affectionately referred to as "Miss A." by others. Schiff says "what is generally not mentioned [by pro-life organizations] is that the essay argues against an anti-abortion law; its author did not believe legislation would resolve the issue of unwanted pregnancy." Gordon, referring to the article's many scriptural quotes and appeals to God, says that its style does not fit with Anthony's "known beliefs".
in 1889 has been presented by both the SBA List and FFL to indicate her stance on abortion:
Tracy Clark-Flory wrote on Salon.com
that the quote was "a statement that can conveniently be taken to mean any number of things." Dannenfelser of SBA List connected the quote to abortion in 2010: "in case there's still lingering doubt about where Susan B. Anthony's convictions lie, her words to Frances Willard in 1889 speak for themselves". However, in the 1990s, Derr determined the context of Anthony's words to be referring not to abortion but rather to her victory in overturning a law which extended past death a father's absolute control of his children, through the means of his last will
, resulting in a baby's fate determined by the father's legal estate
if it was born after his death; a newborn baby could be taken from its mother if so stipulated in the will. After these findings were published by Derr in a 1995 book and in FFL's journal in 1998, the quote was used in 2000 by FFL in a promotional poster, one of eight produced for college campuses, alongside an assertion that Anthony was "another anti-choice fanatic", leading the reader to an abortion-related interpretation of the quote.
and pro-suffrage speech given repeatedly by Anthony in the 1870s, as one that is "more explicit" about abortion. Derr says that "this speech clearly represents abortion as a symptom of the problems faced by women, especially when subjected 'to the tyranny of men's appetites and passions.
In her speech, after naming alcohol abuse as a major social evil and estimating that there are 600,000 American men who are drunkards, Anthony describes how liquor traffic extends "deep and wide into the financial structure of the government" and that it must be fought with "one earnest, energetic, persistent force." She continues:
Later in the speech, Anthony mentions abortion again:
Gordon and Sherr wrote, "Clearly Anthony did not applaud her sister-in-law's action, but the notation is ambiguous. Is it the act of abortion that will be regretted? Or is it being bedridden, the risk taken with one's own life?" Moreover, Gordon writes, there is no indication in the quote that Anthony considered abortion a social or political issue rather than a personal one, that she passionately hated it, or that she was active against it.
In August 2006, Carol Crossed, a pro-life feminist and advisory board member of the SBA List, purchased the house in Adams, Massachusetts
, where Anthony was born. The house was to be managed by Feminists for Life of America. Crossed transformed the house into the Susan B. Anthony Birthplace Museum which opened by appointment in February 2010, with a permanent opening in May. The museum's mission includes "raising public awareness" of Anthony's "wide-ranging legacy" including her being "a pioneering feminist and suffragist as well as a noteworthy figure in the abolitionist, pro-life and temperance movements of the 19th century" (emphasis added.)
A local newspaper said the "she will rue the day" quote is displayed in the museum, though none of the others are. Among the exhibits is one on 19th century activism against Restellism, a euphemism for abortion, in reference to Madame Restell
, one of many who sold abortifacient
s in the 19th century. Anthony refused to publish advertisements for abortifacients in The Revolution. According to the local reporter, the display implies that the rejection of advertisements frames Anthony's personal views about abortion, though she "never specifically states her position."
At its opening, the museum was leafleted by protesters who said the museum's leadership was "inferring upon [Anthony] an unproven historical stance." The protesters said that the directors were using the museum to put forward a pro-life agenda. Answering this assertion, Crossed replied, "the pro-life views expressed in Anthony's newspaper, The Revolution, will not be excluded from the exhibition. This vision represented a very small part of Anthony's life, and while it will be presented, it will not be an overwhelming theme of the birthplace. Anthony's own anti-abortion stance is mentioned in just one of the museum's ten exhibits."
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
suffragist Susan B. Anthony
Susan B. Anthony
Susan Brownell Anthony was a prominent American civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century women's rights movement to introduce women's suffrage into the United States. She was co-founder of the first Women's Temperance Movement with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as President...
's position on abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
has been the subject of a modern-day dispute, centered not around Anthony's personal position on abortion, but rather around whether she worked or spoke against it and how she would fit into the modern debate over the issue
Abortion debate
The abortion debate refers to discussion and controversy surrounding the moral and legal status of abortion. The two main groups involved in the abortion debate are the self-described "pro-choice" movement and the "pro-life" movement...
.
Background
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
, temperance
Temperance movement
A temperance movement is a social movement urging reduced use of alcoholic beverages. Temperance movements may criticize excessive alcohol use, promote complete abstinence , or pressure the government to enact anti-alcohol legislation or complete prohibition of alcohol.-Temperance movement by...
and women's suffrage
Women's suffrage
Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...
. She was born in 1820 and raised by abolitionist Quaker
Religious Society of Friends
The Religious Society of Friends, or Friends Church, is a Christian movement which stresses the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Members are known as Friends, or popularly as Quakers. It is made of independent organisations, which have split from one another due to doctrinal differences...
parents, later attending Unitarian
American Unitarian Association
The American Unitarian Association was a religious denomination in the United States and Canada, formed by associated Unitarian congregations in 1825. In 1961, it merged with the Universalist Church of America to form the Unitarian Universalist Association.According to Mortimer Rowe, the Secretary...
churches and finally becoming agnostic. She fought against the wrongs of slavery from an early age. In her mid-20s, she began to fight against alcohol abuse, and in her late 20s to work toward getting women the right to vote. This last effort became her primary occupation until her death in 1906. In 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment
Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits any United States citizen to be denied the right to vote based on sex. It was ratified on August 18, 1920....
was ratified, giving American women the right to vote. This achievement was the final form of the so-called "Anthony Amendment" first submitted to Congress by Anthony in 1878, and resubmitted every year until it finally passed. In 1979 Anthony was honored as the first American woman represented on circulating U.S. currency, the Susan B. Anthony dollar
Susan B. Anthony dollar
The Susan B. Anthony dollar is a United States coin minted from 1979 to 1981, and again in 1999. It depicts women's suffrage campaigner Susan B. Anthony on a dollar coin. It was the first circulating U.S. coin with the portrait of an actual woman rather than an allegorical female figure such as...
, a memorial of her legacy as the tireless champion of women's suffrage.
Pro-life feminism
Pro-life feminism
Pro-life feminism is the opposition to abortion by a group of feminists who believe that the principles which inform their support of women's rights also call them to support the right to life of prenatal humans...
separated from the mainstream U.S. feminist movement in the early 1970s. The split was based on disagreement about abortion: The majority of second-wave feminists
Second-wave feminism
The Feminist Movement, or the Women's Liberation Movement in the United States refers to a period of feminist activity which began during the early 1960s and lasted through the early 1990s....
such as Betty Friedan
Betty Friedan
Betty Friedan was an American writer, activist, and feminist.A leading figure in the Women's Movement in the United States, her 1963 book The Feminine Mystique is often credited with sparking the "second wave" of American feminism in the twentieth century...
said that open access to elective abortion was part of the political platform of feminism, but some Catholic and other feminists held that a belief in non-violence meant not killing the unborn child. They believed that the availability of abortion contributed to the devaluing of motherhood. Mainstream feminism's insistence on gender equality and abortion rights was seen by the pro-life feminists as having an undesirable masculinizing influence on womanhood, forcing women to be like men in order to succeed in a society dominated by men.
Several pro-life feminist groups such as Feminists for Life (FFL) (founded in the early 1970s), as well as conservative organizations such as Concerned Women for America
Concerned Women for America
Concerned Women for America is a conservative Christian public policy group active in the United States best known for its stance against abortion...
(founded in 1979) have used Anthony's words and image extensively to promote the pro-life cause, saying that Anthony was pro-life. Ann Dexter Gordon
Ann Dexter Gordon
Ann Dexter Gordon is a research professor in the department of history at Rutgers University and editor of the papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, a survey of more than 14,000 papers relating to the pair of 19th century women's rights activists. She is also the editor of the...
, a 30-year scholar of Anthony and the leader of the Rutgers University
Rutgers University
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...
"Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony Papers Project", says "I've watched the anti-abortion movement make these assertions since 1989." In 1992, the Susan B. Anthony List
Susan B. Anthony List
The Susan B. Anthony List, or simply SBA List, is a 501 non-profit, non-partisan organization that seeks to eliminate abortion in the U.S. by supporting pro-life politicians, primarily women, through its SBA List Candidate Fund political action committee...
(SBA List) was founded; it is a political group with the ultimate goal of ending abortion in the United States by supporting pro-life politicians, especially women. The organization was named based on its founders' belief that Anthony was "passionately pro-life", and it also made extensive use of Anthony's words and image.
Arguments
A 2006 article by Allison Stevens for Women's eNewsWomen's eNews
Women's eNews is a nonprofit online news service based in New York City. It publishes international news articles specializing in coverage of women's lives.- History :...
said "a scholarly disagreement ...is growing into a heated skirmish over the famous suffragist's position on reproductive rights." Stevens said pro-choice activists were "outraged over what they say is an unproven claim and concerned that their heroine is being appropriated by a community led by the very people Anthony battled during her lifetime: social conservatives
Social conservatism
Social Conservatism is primarily a political, and usually morally influenced, ideology that focuses on the preservation of what are seen as traditional values. Social conservatism is a form of authoritarianism often associated with the position that the federal government should have a greater role...
." Nora Bredes, the director of the Susan B. Anthony Center for Women's Leadership at the University of Rochester
University of Rochester
The University of Rochester is a private, nonsectarian, research university in Rochester, New York, United States. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees. The university has six schools and various interdisciplinary programs.The...
in New York and a pro-choice Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
politician, said that she wished to "reclaim" Anthony's legacy. Author and columnist Stacy Schiff
Stacy Schiff
Stacy Madeleine Schiff is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American nonfiction author and guest columnist for The New York Times.-Biography:...
said "there is no question that [Anthony] deplored the practice of abortion, as did every one of her colleagues in the suffrage movement." Schiff points out that abortion in the 19th century, unlike today, was a very dangerous and unpredictable procedure. She concludes, "The bottom line is that we cannot possibly know what Anthony would make of today’s debate" over the abortion issue, because "the terms do not translate".
The modern sense of "pro-life" is defined as the political and ethical opposition to elective abortion, and support for its legal prohibition or restriction. In answer to the position that Anthony was pro-life, Gordon wrote that "she never voiced an opinion about the sanctity of fetal life ... and she never voiced an opinion about using the power of the state to require that pregnancies be brought to term." Gloria Feldt, a former head of Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood Federation of America , commonly shortened to Planned Parenthood, is the U.S. affiliate of the International Planned Parenthood Federation and one of its larger members. PPFA is a non-profit organization providing reproductive health and maternal and child health services. The...
, said of Anthony that "there's absolutely nothing in anything that she ever said or did that would indicate she was anti-abortion." Gordon said that the issue of abortion was "a political hot potato", one to avoid; it distracted from Anthony's main goal of gaining women the vote. Gordon said the suffrage movement in the 19th century held political and social views—"secularism
Secularism
Secularism is the principle of separation between government institutions and the persons mandated to represent the State from religious institutions and religious dignitaries...
, the separation of church and state
Separation of church and state
The concept of the separation of church and state refers to the distance in the relationship between organized religion and the nation state....
, and women's self-ownership" (women's autonomy)—that do not fit with modern pro-life concerns.
In early 2007, Cat Clark, an editor of FFL's quarterly magazine, acknowledged that Anthony spent little time on the subject of abortion, but cited FFL researcher Mary Krane Derr who said Anthony's "stance on abortion" was integral to "her commitment to undo gender oppression".
In May 2010, Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin
Sarah Louise Palin is an American politician, commentator and author. As the Republican Party nominee for Vice President in the 2008 presidential election, she was the first Alaskan on the national ticket of a major party and first Republican woman nominated for the vice-presidency.She was...
addressed the SBA List, saying Anthony was one of her heroes, and that Palin's own opposition to abortion rights was influenced by her "feminist foremothers". She said "Organizations like the Susan B. Anthony List are returning the woman's movement back to its original roots, back to what it was all about in the beginning. You remind us of the earliest leaders of the woman's rights movement: They were pro-life." In response to this, journalist Lynn Sherr
Lynn Sherr
Lynn Sherr is an American broadcast journalist and author, best known as a correspondent for the ABC news magazine 20/20....
, author of Failure is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words, joined with Gordon to write an opinion piece for The Washington Post. They said: "We have read every single word that this very voluble—and endlessly political—woman left behind. Our conclusion: Anthony spent no time on the politics of abortion. It was of no interest to her, despite living in a society (and a family) where women aborted unwanted pregnancies." Sherr and Gordon said that their argument "is not over abortion rights. Rather it is about the erosion of accuracy in history and journalism."
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an American social activist, abolitionist, and leading figure of the early woman's movement...
, who referred to abortion as "infanticide" and said, "When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit." She said that while the pro-life cause was not "the issue that earned Susan B. Anthony her stripes in American history books, historians would be wrong to conclude that Anthony was agnostic on the issue of abortion."
Quotes
Anthony wrote very little about abortion. The few existing quotes that are cited by pro-life organizations have been disputed by Anthony scholars and abortion rights activists who say that the quotes are misleading, taken out of context, or misattributed."Guilty?"
Pro-lifers cite as Anthony's own words an anonymous essay entitled "Marriage and Maternity" published in 1869 in The RevolutionThe Revolution (newspaper)
The Revolution was a weekly women's rights newspaper published between January 8, 1868 and February 1872. It was the official publication of the National Woman Suffrage Association which was formed by feminists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony...
, a newspaper owned for two years by Anthony and edited by fellow women's rights activists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Parker Pillsbury
Parker Pillsbury
Parker Pillsbury was an American minister and advocate for abolition and women's rights.Pillsbury was born in Hamilton, Massachusetts...
. The essay is against abortion and the societal problems which cause it, but the author believes any proposed law prohibiting abortion would fail to "reach the root of the evil, and destroy it." The cited text includes this admonition against abortion:
The piece was signed simply "A." Because it was published in The Revolution, Dannenfelser wrote that "most logical people would agree, then, that writings signed by 'A.' in a paper that Anthony funded and published were a reflection of her own opinions." Responding to the equating of Anthony's beliefs with those voiced in The Revolution, Gordon said that people "have a hard time wrapping their minds around the fact that The Revolution was a paper of debate—presenting both sides of an issue." Gordon, whose project at Rutgers has examined 14,000 documents related to Stanton and Anthony, wrote that there is no proof that Anthony wrote the cited essay since she was not known to sign "A.". However, Derr says Anthony was known to sign "S.B.A." and was affectionately referred to as "Miss A." by others. Schiff says "what is generally not mentioned [by pro-life organizations] is that the essay argues against an anti-abortion law; its author did not believe legislation would resolve the issue of unwanted pregnancy." Gordon, referring to the article's many scriptural quotes and appeals to God, says that its style does not fit with Anthony's "known beliefs".
"Sweeter even"
A letter that Anthony wrote to Frances WillardFrances Willard (suffragist)
Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard was an American educator, temperance reformer, and women's suffragist. Her influence was instrumental in the passage of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution...
in 1889 has been presented by both the SBA List and FFL to indicate her stance on abortion:
Tracy Clark-Flory wrote on Salon.com
Salon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
that the quote was "a statement that can conveniently be taken to mean any number of things." Dannenfelser of SBA List connected the quote to abortion in 2010: "in case there's still lingering doubt about where Susan B. Anthony's convictions lie, her words to Frances Willard in 1889 speak for themselves". However, in the 1990s, Derr determined the context of Anthony's words to be referring not to abortion but rather to her victory in overturning a law which extended past death a father's absolute control of his children, through the means of his last will
Will (law)
A will or testament is a legal declaration by which a person, the testator, names one or more persons to manage his/her estate and provides for the transfer of his/her property at death...
, resulting in a baby's fate determined by the father's legal estate
Estate (law)
An estate is the net worth of a person at any point in time. It is the sum of a person's assets - legal rights, interests and entitlements to property of any kind - less all liabilities at that time. The issue is of special legal significance on a question of bankruptcy and death of the person...
if it was born after his death; a newborn baby could be taken from its mother if so stipulated in the will. After these findings were published by Derr in a 1995 book and in FFL's journal in 1998, the quote was used in 2000 by FFL in a promotional poster, one of eight produced for college campuses, alongside an assertion that Anthony was "another anti-choice fanatic", leading the reader to an abortion-related interpretation of the quote.
Social Purity
Derr describes "Social Purity", an anti-alcohol, anti-prostitutionProstitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
and pro-suffrage speech given repeatedly by Anthony in the 1870s, as one that is "more explicit" about abortion. Derr says that "this speech clearly represents abortion as a symptom of the problems faced by women, especially when subjected 'to the tyranny of men's appetites and passions.
In her speech, after naming alcohol abuse as a major social evil and estimating that there are 600,000 American men who are drunkards, Anthony describes how liquor traffic extends "deep and wide into the financial structure of the government" and that it must be fought with "one earnest, energetic, persistent force." She continues:
Later in the speech, Anthony mentions abortion again:
"She will rue the day"
According to Gordon and Sherr, the only clear reference to abortion in writings known to be Anthony's came in her diary. Anthony wrote in 1876 that she visited her brother and learned that her sister-in-law had had an abortion. "Things did not go well", say Gordon and Sherr, and her sister-in-law was bedridden. Anthony wrote, "She will rue the day she forces nature."Gordon and Sherr wrote, "Clearly Anthony did not applaud her sister-in-law's action, but the notation is ambiguous. Is it the act of abortion that will be regretted? Or is it being bedridden, the risk taken with one's own life?" Moreover, Gordon writes, there is no indication in the quote that Anthony considered abortion a social or political issue rather than a personal one, that she passionately hated it, or that she was active against it.
Susan B. Anthony Birthplace Museum
Adams, Massachusetts
Adams is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 8,485 at the 2010 census.-History:...
, where Anthony was born. The house was to be managed by Feminists for Life of America. Crossed transformed the house into the Susan B. Anthony Birthplace Museum which opened by appointment in February 2010, with a permanent opening in May. The museum's mission includes "raising public awareness" of Anthony's "wide-ranging legacy" including her being "a pioneering feminist and suffragist as well as a noteworthy figure in the abolitionist, pro-life and temperance movements of the 19th century" (emphasis added.)
A local newspaper said the "she will rue the day" quote is displayed in the museum, though none of the others are. Among the exhibits is one on 19th century activism against Restellism, a euphemism for abortion, in reference to Madame Restell
Madame Restell
Ann Trow , better known as Madame Restell, was an early-19th-century abortionist who practiced in New York City.-Biography:...
, one of many who sold abortifacient
Abortifacient
An abortifacient is a substance that induces abortion. Abortifacients for animals that have mated undesirably are known as mismating shots....
s in the 19th century. Anthony refused to publish advertisements for abortifacients in The Revolution. According to the local reporter, the display implies that the rejection of advertisements frames Anthony's personal views about abortion, though she "never specifically states her position."
At its opening, the museum was leafleted by protesters who said the museum's leadership was "inferring upon [Anthony] an unproven historical stance." The protesters said that the directors were using the museum to put forward a pro-life agenda. Answering this assertion, Crossed replied, "the pro-life views expressed in Anthony's newspaper, The Revolution, will not be excluded from the exhibition. This vision represented a very small part of Anthony's life, and while it will be presented, it will not be an overwhelming theme of the birthplace. Anthony's own anti-abortion stance is mentioned in just one of the museum's ten exhibits."