That's a radical message to bring to college campuses, and of course, it's radicals that are issuing the challenge: Question abortion. Feminists For Life challenges women on campus to take a hard look at the status quo and ask, "Is this good enough?"

The early feminists had no great love for abortion. Feminist icon Susan B. Anthony called abortion "child murder." (More on her later.)

Other feminist foremothers saw abortion as a symptom of the disenfranchisement of women, not as a way to equality:

Elizabeth Cady Stanton:

"There must be a remedy even for such a crying evil as this. But where shall it be found, at least where begin, if not in the complete enfranchisement and elevation of women?"

Mattie Brinkerhoff

"When a man steals to satisfy hunger, we may safely conclude that there is something wrong in society - so when a woman destroys the life of her unborn child, it is an evidence that either by education or circumstances she has been greatly wronged."

Victoria Woodhull

"The rights of children as individuals begin while yet they remain the foetus."
"Every woman knows that if she were free, she would never bear an unwished-for child, nor think of murdering one before its birth."

Alice Paul

"Abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women."

Even advocates of legal abortion will say, "Nobody wants to have an abortion." If this is true -- and we know in our heads and our hearts that it is -- how can enshrining abortion as a "right" be respectful of women?

Women who avail themselves of this highly praised "right" don't seem to be celebrating freedom when they're doing it. Abortion is undertaken with anguish and tears, not with lighthearted celebration. Are men asked to take such a radical step to maintain their status as valued citizens? Are they told that a demeaning, intrusive, humiliating, dangerous experience is a "right" that they should celebrate and safeguard?

Would any fully enfranchised citizen undertake such an agonizing, soul-wrenching ordeal as an abortion willingly?

Question abortion. Does it really make sense? Is it really the benevolence its advocates describe? Or is it just one more way to let men off the hook at women's expense?

Picture courtesy of Feminists For Life of America

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