Oct 4, 2006 / 22:00 pm
The fall issue of Ms. Magazine features a cover story that celebrates abortion and includes more than 1,000 signatures of women who say they are pleased with their decision to have an abortion. Many pro-life groups are saying the petition is misleading.
Eleanor Smeal, president of the pro-abortion Feminist Majority Foundation, which publishes Ms. Magazine, told The Associated Press that the issue comes at a "dire" time when abortions are on the decline, states are considering abortion bans, and the Senate has approved two new Supreme Court justices who may back repealing Roe v. Wade.
The issue, set to hit newsstands Oct. 10, is also timed to coincide with the November election battle, Smeal admitted. Ms. says it intends to send its petition, with more than 5,000 signatures, to the White House, Congress, and state lawmakers.
But pro-life women’s groups say they are disgusted by the campaign.
"This campaign is intended to drown out the courageous women who have spoken out on how abortion hurt them," Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America told LifeNews.com. “Simply stating that one has had an abortion does not legitimize the act, erase the pain or undo the damage to mother and baby."
That emotional and physical pain was cited by tens of thousands of women in petitions to the state of South Dakota before it considered a ban on abortions and in petitions to the group Operation Outcry in its efforts to overturn Roe.
“Such a morally bankrupt campaign is an embarrassment for civilized and caring human beings,” said Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse, senior fellow of the Beverly LaHaye Institute, the think tank for Concerned Women for America.
“The pride behind the ‘We Had Abortions’ campaign is totally inconsistent with, and puts the lie to, the fatuous claim frequently bandied about during election campaigns by the Left that they too want to make abortion rare,” she added.
In a statement, Concerned Women for America noted that many readers of the magazine are ardent supporters of Planned Parenthood, which is “greatly threatened by potential policy changes that would limit abortion on demand, since one of its major sources of income is providing abortions.”
Crouse also pointed out that the magazines ability to obtain only 5,000 women who are proud of their abortions is indicative in itself. “Obviously, with nearly 50,000,000 abortions since the courts imposed abortion on the U.S., there are thousands of women who could sign such a petition. Many women who have had an abortion, though, are not comfortable with their decision and thousands deeply regret their abortions.”
“Some are devastated because the abortion left them unable to have children,” said Crouse. “Certainly even most women who believe that abortion is acceptable would not celebrate such a drastic action.”