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Swimming Against the Tide

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Editor Angela Kennedy notes in the beginning of this book that many pro-life feminists have either by stifled by the mainstream feminists, or have fallen away from the feminist movement altogether as a result of their disenchantment. As someone who thinks women should have equal treatment as a matter of course, but has been alienated by the tone of mainstream American feminism, I certainly saw where she was coming from. This book seeks to bring some of those marginalized voices out into the open.

This is an eclectic collection of nine essays on abortion and feminism along with an introduction and an afterword by Angela Kennedy. The writers hail from Ireland, Britan and the USA, and share their reflections on abortion that are often more of a first-person, narrative style than in the form of persuasive arguments.

The topics vary widely, from Mary Krane Derr's historical essay on feminism's pro-life roots, "A Lost Source of Strength and Power", to Ann Farmer and Ali Browning's respective essays on how socialism and vegetarianism relate to abortion. These latter two are particularly interesting, as Farmer's essay discusses how abortion rights have stifled other attempts to help women. While Farmer writes specifically on the abortion issue as it has come about in Britain, it isn't hard to see parallels with the abortion issue in other countries. Browning's essay was refreshing in that I know or know of a fair number of pro-choice vegetarians (a frightening, but strangely humorous contradiction), and she does a good job of calling vegetarians to reassess their opinions. My main gripe is that while Browning specifically reject's Peter Singer's extremely pro-abortion, pro-animal stance, her own stance is rather similar, in that it eliminates the distinction between people and animals on the grounds that we can both feel pain. I'm glad she opposes Singer, but I think has granted him too many of his own utilitarian points.

The final essay is Catherine Spencer's "Obstinate Questionings", on her own experience with abortion, whose reflections will haunt you for some time after reading it. Combined with Rachel Mac Nair's "Is Abortion Good for Women?", earlier in the book, the reader is given a good introduction to Post Abortion Syndrome's effect on women who abortion (and even how abortion psychologically damages abortion practioners). This is a vitally important subject since even many pro-lifers assume that while abortion is fatal to the unborn child, it is a neutral, or even beneficial procedure for the expectant mother. This is a disastrous assumption which must be challenged, which Mac Nair and Spencer ably execute.

Aside from these highlights, other writers discuss the abortion issue's relationship to how the disabled are perceived (written by a wife of a man with spina bifida and hydrocephalus), and more general analyses of how abortion has affected the feminist movement.

For those who are estranged from feminism because of bioethical issues, or are trying to develop a more complete picture of Western feminism, or are having a hard time fitting in with the pro-life movement, this is a great book to have.