What the abortion lobby has done to feminism

The Abolition of Women
by Fiorella Nash, Ignatius Press, 240pp, £14

If readers are mystified by Fiorella Nash’s title, her subtitle explains her subject: How Radical Feminism is Betraying Women. Nash, who describes herself as a “pro-life feminist” and has 10 years’ experience researching life issues from a feminist perspective, has written a passionate, well-researched and well-argued book, showing how women are betrayed by the pro-choice lobby – indeed, how abortion attitudes corrupt every area of women’s lives and fertility.

As feminists accept abortion unquestioningly, the author’s contention that instead of helping women, it involves trauma, abuse and exploitation is central to the book. This leads to the ironic situation whereby, in the US, Feminists for Life are attacked as merely “masquerading as feminists”.

Feminists’ fury is also aimed – pitilessly – at women who regret their abortions. In other words, the right to abortion is a dogma removed from the realm of reasoned debate.

Nash points to the silence of feminists on the subject of “gendercide”, widespread in cultures where sons are more valued than daughters. They are also silent on the forcible abortion and sterilisation of women in China, rightly described by the author as “an appalling atrocity against a woman’s liberty and dignity”. Nash further draws attention to Amnesty International’s puzzling support for “sex workers”, and its refusal to see prostitutes as victims, often trafficked across borders by male gangs.

Nash argues that the “first purpose of pro-life feminism is to give a platform to women denied the right to speak”. This group can include women from Third World countries who, motivated by poverty, carry and bear children for Western women.

She also shows the flaws in the notorious arguments of radical feminists, who describe an unborn baby as a “parasite”, a “hijacker” and a “predator” of a woman’s body, reminding readers that “the unborn child belongs in a woman’s uterus”, which has been specially designed for this purpose.

Everyone who is engaged in the ongoing struggle to protect vulnerable women from their real enemies in the pro-choice lobby should arm themselves with the persuasive arguments in this book.