Sherry Colb on Feminists for Life

Sherry Colb, a Findlaw.com contributor and Rutgers law professor, discusses Feminists for Life since Supreme Court nominee John Roberts is married to their former vice-president, Jane Sullivan Roberts.

Colb attempts to discuss whether an individual can be prolife and a feminist at the same time. Like most of Colb's writings, her obvious distaste for prolife people and their views is evident and she seems completely incapable of making an actual argument.

Nowhere in the column does Colb actually take the time to define feminism. So then how does she determine whether Feminists for Life are actual feminists or phony feminists? Good question. Colb doesn't feel FFL is a feminist organization because "the group's priority" isn't "improving the lives of women" but rather eliminating abortion. Do you notice the enormous "elephant in the room" assumption? Eliminating abortion doesn't improve the lives of women.

In her attack on FFL she brings up their posters but never mentions Feminists for Life work work in helping to pass legislation that helps women in crisis pregnancies.

Just a tidbit more of Colb - it's difficult to take swallow the whole essay:

First, the posters mislead the viewer by suggesting that babies and young women are the victims (or potential victims) of abortion. As I discussed in an earlier column, the overwhelming majority of abortions occur early in pregnancy, when a fetus or embryo is not what many people would consider a baby at all.

Do you see the logic here? That's right. If "many people" don't consider the fetus to be a "baby" then babies and young women aren't victims of abortion. Bravo!! If "many people" don't consider something a baby, then nothing is actually harmed in an abortion.

It is true, of course, that the babies and young adult pictured in the posters would not have been born if their mothers had had abortions. However, it is also true that they would not have been born if their mothers had used contraception or, in the case of the young adult, if her father had not raped her mother. Does that mean that we should consider contraception murder or that when an ovulating woman is being raped, people should not intervene? Certainly not.

Colb seems to have difficulty realizing that the unborn actually exist. It isn't a future thing which doesn't currently exist that could come into existence sometime in the future but an actual thing that currently exists. The difference between killing the unborn (via abortion) and preventing something from ever existing (via not having sex during a certain day or using contraception) fails to register with Colb.

Colb, "a law professor," then goes on to equate reversing Roe v. Wade with criminalizing abortion. It's so frustrating when someone who teaches law equates overturning a Supreme Court ruling with making abortion illegal. If Roe v. Wade is overturned, that doesn't necessarily make abortion illegal. I would hope that Colb would know this. States will have to pass laws and/or keep abortion laws from being overturned in order to make abortion illegal. Overturning Roe simply eliminates the Supreme Court from controlling abortion laws.

Colb goes on to conclude that, "Judge Roberts may be an unknown quantity on some other issues, but on this one, it is clear that President Bush has deliberately selected a pro-life candidate and that a Justice Roberts would very likely work to turn back the clock on Roe v. Wade."