Womb with a view

Syndicated columnist Rich Lowry wrote this week of the Obama campaign’s condescension toward women. He cited the views of early feminists that women are “just as capable of rational deliberation as men.”

He didn’t mention how out of sync Obama’s views on reproduction are with those of some pioneers of women’s rights.

More than 100 years after her death, Susan B. Anthony remains the subject of scholarly debate about her views on abortion. Anti-abortion groups believe Anthony actively opposed the practice; abortion-rights groups claims she had no strong feelings on the subject.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton once wrote of the “murder of children, either before or after birth.” Victoria Woodhall, the first female candidate for president (1872), said, “Every woman knows that if she were free, she would never bear an unwished-for child, nor think of murdering one before its birth.”

The point of this is that women — including some modern feminists — don’t have a unified view supporting abortion at any stage of a pregnancy or government-mandated contraception. Obama’s one-womb-fits-all philosophy is patronizing and an insult to many American women.

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