Women's Rights Advocates and Abortion Laws

For decades, a group called Feminists for Life (FFL) has insisted that the founders of the women's rights movement, including Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, opposed abortion and worked to make it illegal. In fact, most early feminists expressed decided skepticism about outlawing abortion. This article revisits the sources and context to show that the early feminists condemned abortion but also predicted that anti-abortion laws would not work because they did not consult women's interests. The theories of sexuality on which these feminists premised their ideas about abortion soon became outdated, but their insight about the laws was prescient. A fuller understanding of this piece of women's history offers little support to anti-choice activists; indeed, it calls their whole project into question.