Ship of Fools: How a Selfish Ruling Class Is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution

by Tucker Carlson

It’s not obvious why abortion should be the one nonnegotiable value of feminism, or even a value at all. The earliest feminists saw nothing virtuous about it. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, one of the first suffragettes, called abortion the “murder of children.” Susan B. Anthony referred to it as “infanticide.” Nor did they see anything shameful about childbearing and motherhood. On the contrary, early feminists understood their power as women was rooted in their biological differences from men. Only women bear children. Having children may not be the most consequential thing an individual woman does, and not all women choose to do it. But childbearing remains women’s unique contribution to the perpetuation of the species. Without pregnant women, humanity dies. That’s not a small thing. Pretending it is denies biology. But there’s a larger cost. Promoting abortion diminishes the importance of childbearing. You can’t simultaneously argue that pregnancy is meaningful, and that ending a pregnancy is as morally significant as an appendectomy. Both can’t be true. When motherhood is less valuable to society, so are women. Yet modern feminists behave as if fertility is a threat to be feared and conquered. They devalue the one irreplaceable thing women do. They clearly believe that having children is less impressive than working at an investment bank.