To the editors.
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It is not well known that the men and women who first fought for social and legal acceptance of contraception in this country were unwilling to do the same for abortion. Indeed they firmly opposed it. In the 1880s, feminist physician Edward Bond Foote argued that contraception was necessary not only to promote the well-being of women, but to reduce the destruction of fetuses, which he deemed an unjust taking of human life. Margaret Sanger did the same in the early 20th century. As recounted in My Fight or Birth Control, she advertised the services of her first clinic with handbills imploring, “MOTHERS! DO NOT KILL, DO NOT TAKE LIFE, BUT PREVENT.” She lamented not only the lives of women lost to unscrupulous practitioners but “the killing of babies.” Her advocacy of contraception was largely motivated by her negative feelings about abortion.
Contrary to popular belief, the majority of the prolife movement’s resources go not into clinic protests but into direct provision of services to pregnant women and new mothers. The dedicated, largely volunteer efforts of crisis pregnancy centers never make the headlines, but they do make a real difference every day in the lives of women and children. A significant number of prolifers not only give generously of their time and money to such groups but take pregnant women into their own homes and adopt special-needs children.
