Because modern feminism outside of Malta, and especially these days in Europe, seems to be synonymous with "abortion rights", few people are aware that the founders of most feminist movements, including the better known American feminist movement, were staunchly opposed to abortion and condemned it as "child murder" (Susan B. Anthony), a "most degrading and disgusting crime" (Elizabeth Cady Stanton), "antenatal murder" (Sarah Norton) and the "ultimate exploitation of women" (Alice Paul).

E.C. Stanton wrote in 1873, "When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading for women to treat their children as property, to be disposed of as they see fit."

But the early feminists' pro-life views went well beyond the anti-abortion rhetoric of their day. They argued that in order to eliminate the "evil" of abortion, we must reach the root cause - society's oppression of women. The early feminists recognised abortion as a symptom of women's oppression, not a solution to it, and they hoped for its elimination rather than its general acceptance.

The drive for legal abortion came in response to legitimate social problems that were preventing women from reaching their fullest potential: an unfair burden on women for nurturing children while men were given more opportunities for achievement outside the home, pay inequity, job discrimination, sexual harassment, domestic violence and a lack of legal and financial rights.

Rather than freeing women, abortion exonerated men from obligations to their partners and children. Child abuse and the feminisation of poverty have escalated since the availability of abortion, and instead of shared responsibility, more of the burden of child rearing has shifted to women including the responsibility to abort their child and to privately deal with the consequences.

By giving in to abortion instead of working for social changes that would facilitate combining children and career, Europe and much of the world have relieved society of its obligation to accommodate the real needs of women. We must never let this happen to Malta.

Women for abortion rights like Rebecca Gomperts of the abortion ship have abandoned core feminist values and adopted the worst patriarchal standards: seeking power through control, condoning violence on the grounds of personal privacy and using killing to resolve conflict. We even had one of our own, a Maltese MEP in the European Parliament, John Attard Montaldo, who recently voted in favour of abortion in war zones around the world. We have yet to see if he will be elected again in 2009.

By insisting on abortion as a necessary component to equality, we have capitulated to a traditional male world view. In effect, women must become womb-less and "unpregnant" like men to fit in, and they must resort to violence to do so.

As the feminist movement continues into the next century, women must re-evaluate the causes around which we rally in order to reach our goal of a more inclusive society. Let us support causes that reflect true feminist ideals of justice and non-violence, causes that actually will bring women the respect they deserve.

Abortion should not be presented as some innocuous quick fix when the post-traumatic affects can also be very dramatic. The typical pro-abort really does not care who is "right", because they subscribe to situational ethics. But the issue of moral correctness is very important to the majority of individuals who adhere to some kind of moral standard.

These people may be Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or non-theistic, but they all realise that man is a creature who needs some kind of moral framework within which to exist as a human being.

Without such a framework, Man wanders aimlessly in the featureless landscape of situational ethics, and devolves into a creature possessing a system of "morals" that are more similar to being animalistic by nature and thus driven by instinct. Under such a regime, Man becomes a creature that cannot be distinguished from the lower beasts. When one talks of human rights, we refer to humanity in its nature and reject any notion of discrimination.

Because of the unrelenting grip that the culture of death has on society we are in danger of losing sight of the fact that since the beginning, we have and continue to be human in nature from conception.