The Network of enlightened Women (NeW), Boston College’s conservative women’s group, hosted an event called “Women of the Pro-Life Movement” on Monday, October 5 over Zoom. The event featured a presentation delivered by Emma Foley, CSOM ‘22 and NeW treasurer, about women from different eras promoting the pro-life cause and multiple discussions involving members of NeW and the Boston College Pro-Life Club, who were invited to the event.
After the 15 attendees from both clubs introduced themselves, Foley described NeW’s founding and purpose.
“The Network of enlightened Women began as a book club at the University of Virginia in 2004. When women on campuses across the nation heard about this organization for collegiate women, the network expanded nationally… NeW is present today on 40 campuses and counting,” Foley said. “The Boston College chapter was started in Fall 2019 with a goal to create a community of conservative women on campus with an emphasis on free thought and free speech. Not one of us is a carbon copy of another when it comes to the way we view policy, and that is what makes it fun; we are here to celebrate intellectual diversity and to seek truth.”
The presentation started with Foley pointing out that today’s abortion debate in the popular media often only features women on one side of the issue. Foley called attention to Shout Your Abortion, an organization that seeks to “normalize abortion through art, media and community events,” and their mantra: “Abortion is normal. Our stories are ours to tell. This is not a debate.”
Foley then spoke about multiple feminists from previous centuries who made defending the unborn and mothers a priority. These early pro-life feminists included Mary Wollstonecraft, an 18th-century moral philosopher and author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Susan B. Anthony, a 19th-century abolitionist and early proponent of women’s suffrage, and Victoria Woodhull, one of the first female Wall Street stockbrokers and the first female candidate running for the American presidency in 1872.
“These women held true to their pro-life beliefs throughout their careers,” one NeW member said after the event. “Their determination to help others is admirable, and they are great examples of what it means to be a pro-life feminist still today.”
Foley brought up women in leadership positions within the pro-life movement today including Abby Johnson, author of Unplanned and founder of And Then There Were None, and Lila Rose, founder and president of Live Action.
“Stories like Lila Rose’s and Abby Johnson’s are not celebrated in today’s culture, because people’s conception of abortion rests on celebrating a woman’s choice to not birth and care for a child and, instead, move on with her life. Abortions are a terrible, traumatic experience for both mother and the baby,” Julia Catanzaro, MCAS ‘21 and President of NeW, said after the event. “For people who don’t believe that they’re taking a life with an abortion, as is the way with modern culture, it appears no different than a medical procedure… rather than a tragedy. This is why society doesn’t celebrate stories like Lila’s and Abby’s.”
Foley concluded the event by facilitating a discussion about other pivotal players in today’s pro-life movement including the Little Sisters of the Poor, an international congregation of Catholic religious women who sued the Obama administration for mandating them to provide contraception and abortifacients to their lay employees, and David Daleiden, the investigative journalist who exposed Planned Parenthood’s fetal tissue trafficking scheme in 2015.
“I was definitely proud of the collaboration of our organization with Students for Life and I’d love to work on combining with more groups on campus in the future,” Foley said following the presentation and discussion. “I was impressed with how much knowledge of the topics members brought and how much contribution to the discussion they provided.”
Featured image courtesy of Sarah Davis via Flickr
Max Montana is a senior studying philosophy and theology. When not writing for The Torch, he enjoys reading more about the Catholic faith and philosophy, serving the unborn and mothers in need, and hanging out with friends. Max is honored to hail from the state with many gators and the bishop of the moon: Florida.
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