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Volume 7, Number 4 Winter 2000-2001 $5.00 Remarkable Pro-Life Women II FFL honors the many contributions of pro-life women. WINTER Remarkable 2000-2001 Pro-Life contents Women II The first Remarkable Pro-Life Women issue of 8 Entertainment The American Feminist appeared in 1998. Kate Mulgrew, actor Dedicated to remarkable pro-life women who Margaret Colin, actor share FFL’s commitment to the defense of all Patricia Heaton, actor life, this issue featured international leaders, mothers, entertainers, businesswomen and 14 Activism doctors. This year, we honor the continuing Dana Rosemary Scallon, singer/public representative Mary Jane Owen, National Catholic Office of Persons With achievements of more pro-life women. Disabilities We celebrate the accomplishments of these Rebecca Wasser Kiessling, family law attorney exceptional women, whose appreciation for the Marion Syversen, FFL board member value of life is intrinsic in everything they do. 17 In Memoriam Loretta Young 3 International Leader 20 Academia Corazon Aquino, former president, Philippines Sidney Callahan, Ph.D. 4 National Leaders Pat Lockwood, Michigan State House of Representatives Mary Ellen Otremba, Minnesota State House of In Every Issue: Representatives 17 We Remember Women who died from legal abortions. 6 Journalism 19 Voices of Women Who Mourn Michelle Malkin, columnist, Creator’s Syndicate FFL gives voice to the millions of women who are mourning Norah Vincent, columnist, The Village Voice their loss after an abortion. The Quarterly Magazine of Feminists for Life of America Editor Erin M. Sullivan Associate Editors Maureen O’Connor, Molly Pannell Copy Editors Donna R. Foster, Karen MacKavanagh Art Director Lisa Toscani Design/Layout Elizabeth Lambertson Research Assistants Gina Reynolds, Apollo F. Salle Feminists for Life of America, 733 15th Street, NW, Suite 1100, Washington, DC 20005; (202) 737-3352; www.feministsforlife.org. President Serrin M. Foster Chair Andrea Milanowski Vice Chair Peter Wolfgang Public Policy Chair Therese Madden Treasurer Carol D. Rieg Secretary Juda Buchanan Member at Large Marion Syversen. Feminists for Life of America, founded in 1972 and reorganized in 1995, is a member of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, National Women’s Coalition for Life, National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence Against Women, and Seamless Garment Network. The opinions expressed in The American Feminist by individual authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the policies, views or beliefs of The American Feminist editorial staff, FFL’s President, or the Board of Directors. Copyright 2000. All rights reserved. Printed on recycled paper. international leader CORAZON AQUINO Former president, Philippines TINY, BESPECTACLED WOMAN and mother of five, Corazon Aquino became known internationally for Aher ability as president of the Philippines to govern the sometimes-volatile nation without resorting to violence. Aquino rose to become one of what Time magazine called “The Most Influential Asians of the Century” and a role model for other women world leaders. Exiled with her husband and family from the Philippines by dictator Ferdinand Marcos, Aquino spent three years in the United States. Promises of democratic elections brought her husband back to the Philippines. He was assassinated upon his return to Manila. Two and half years after her husband’s assassination, Corazon Aquino challenged her country’s corrupt government, led a “People’s Revolution,” and was elected the first female president of the Philippines. Aquino quickly appointed a commission to write a new constitution for the nation. Ratified in a landslide popular vote in 1987, this constitution outlawed the death penalty in the Philippines. Despite several attempts to oust her from power, Aquino remained president until her six-year term expired. Her administration launched economic initiatives to put the Philippines on the road to economic recovery and initiated a peace process to reach out to communist and Muslim rebel groups. In response to the United Nation’s draft “Program of Action” for the Cairo summit on women’s issues, Aquino led a rally of hundreds of thousands of Filipino people opposed to legalizing abortion in the Philippines. The rally also celebrated the statement opposing abortion that the Philippine delegation made at the Cairo conference. ❍ Patricia A. Lockwood State representative, Michigan ATRICIA LOCKWOOD, a Michigan Democrat, serves the men, women and children of PGenesee County, Mich., in the state House of Representatives. A wife, mother of three and grandmother, Lockwood served as mayor of the onal lea town of Fenton, Mich., before her election to the state house. In response to recent high-profile cases of baby abandonment, Lockwood sponsored legislation to fund the Safe Haven program. “Our message is that guilt, fear, poverty or shame are not reasons to leave a baby someplace to die,” said Lockwood. national leaders The program provides legal immunity for abandonment to persons who safely abandon newborns at hospitals in the presence of a health- care worker. In October 1999, Lockwood met with FFL President Serrin M. Foster in Lansing, Mich., to discuss FFL’s College Outreach Program. “The choice of life for women in college should not only refer to the life of the infant, but it should also connote a fulfilling for the mother and family,” said Lockwood. “These young women have every right to high-quality medical attention, housing and other resources for themselves and their babies—resources that also help women stay in school.” ❍ “These young [college women bearing children] have every right to high- quality medical attention, housing and other resources for themselves and their babies—resources that also help women stay in school.” Winter 2000-2001 For Otremba, being pro-life “means being pro-life on all the issues.” She is a staunch opponent of abortion and capital punishment. Mary Ellen Otremba State representative, Minnesota AISED IN THE FARMLAND of Minnesota, Mary Ellen Otremba serves as a voice for the Rvoiceless in the Minnesota Legislature. A co-sponsor of the Women’s Right To Know legislation and author of numerous pro-life bills, Otremba often stands alone in her political party, the Democratic Farmer Labor party. For Otremba, being pro-life “means being pro- life on all the issues.” She is a staunch opponent of abortion and capital punishment. She authored legislation requiring all abortion providers to track the type of abortions performed. This legislation— which allowed the state to learn where partial- birth abortions were taking place—was signed into law by a pro-choice governor and was the only piece of pro-life legislation ever signed by that governor. In 1992, Otremba was one of 10 pro-life Democrats at the Democratic National Convention in New York. A mother of four children and a breast-cancer survivor, Otremba feels that “as a rural female legislator I give a lot of people, especially women, ‘permission’ to get involved in politics.” ❍ Winter 2000-2001 5 JOURNALISM Michelle Malkin Columnist Imagine the ICHELLE MALKIN is a nationally Columnists, and the Council on Government syndicated columnist for Creator’s Ethics Law. MSyndicate. Her twice-weekly column is In her columns, Malkin frequently roar of 40 published by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, champions the rights of women—born and Miami Herald, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, unborn. In a recent column she wrote, “For million tiny Washington Times and Chicago Sun-Times. three decades, the pro-abortion lobby has The daughter of Filipino immigrants, succeeded in squelching doubts and dissent Malkin began her career in newspaper about the mass destruction of human lives— voices, all journalism with the Los Angeles Daily News 40 million so far—in the name of choice. But where she worked as an editorial writer and the truth is seeping out.” She goes on to in unison ... weekly columnist. In 1996, she joined the acknowledge the ethical qualms many editorial board of the Seattle Times, where she abortion clinic workers are beginning to feel. penned editorials and weekly columns for three “And according to an account in the pro- crying out : and a half years. choice publication American Medical News, Malkin’s work has been cited in the New clinic workers often wonder if the fetus feels ‘I want to York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, pain. ... Haunting auditory hallucinations. Reader’s Digest and U.S. News and World Voices from the womb. This is the pro- Report. Her wide-ranging and news-breaking abortion movement’s worst nightmare. live. I do commentary has been honored by several Imagine the roar of 40 million tiny voices, all national organizations including the Evert in unison ... crying out: ‘I want to live. I do not want Clark Science Award for journalists under the not want to die.’” ❍ age of 30, the National Society of Newspaper to die.’” 6 Winter 2000-2001 Norah Vincent Journalist ORAH VINCENT’S COLUMNS spark debate on the pages of New York City’s NVillage Voice, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, The Advocate and many other newspapers and magazines across the country. “Higher Ed”—her bi-weekly column in The Village Voice—examines issues facing students on college campuses. In a recent column she asserted that “few [colleges and universities] have given the golden nod to one particularly vulnerable minority: mothers.” Citing FFL’s College Outreach Program as a model, she went on to challenge colleges and universities to provide resources for pregnant and parenting students. Vincent challenges the women’s movement’s acceptance of abortion, writing, “Second wave feminists embraced the wrongheaded notion that for women to be equal to men, they had, essentially, to become men and erase all signs of womanhood, especially the biologically determinative ones.” She went on to write that these women’s leaders believe that “the only way to behave like men, both … these [second wave feminist] leaders believe that sexually and professionally, without paying the uterine “the only way to behave like men, both sexually price, was to make pregnancies eradicable.