Nowadays, when the modern feminist movement has moved so far from its idealistic origins, the name of Victoria Woodhull is known only as the Jeopardy answer to "Who was the first woman to run for President of the United Sates?"But Victoria Claflin Woodhull was even more than that. She was one of the original pioneers in the struggle for human rights and as a speaker, writer, newspaper editor and stockbroker (one of the first women to serve in that occupation), she created the initial impetus for a movement that would one day win women the right to vote -- nearly 40 years after her run for the presidency!
And like most of the early feminists, Victoria Woodhull was a staunch opponent of abortion. Cat Clark collects a few quotations from an editorial entitled “When Is It Not Murder to Take Life?” and published in Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly to illustrate:
Every one will concede that it is murder to take the life of a human being. But the very pertinent question arises just here, when does human life begin? The beating of the heart, modern science tells us, never begins; that is to say, there is no time in the whole process of the growth of the human body from the moment of conception until death, that pulsations of life are not present in what is to develop into the perfected body. Where, then, shall the line be drawn, on one side of which it shall be murder to cause these pulsations to cease, and upon the other not murder?
...Many women who would be shocked at the very thought of killing their children after birth, deliberately destroy them previously. If there is any difference in the actual crime we should be glad to have those who practice the latter, point it out. The truth of the matter is that it is just as much a murder to destroy life in its embryotic condition, as it is to destroy it after the fully developed form is attained, for it is the self-same life that is taken.
...They who, having conceived [children] then destroy them, are murderers; and no amount of sophistry nor excuses can, by one iota, mitigate the enormity of the crime. They do even more than murder, they virtually commit suicide, for no woman can practice this crime without in part destroying her own life.
...While we shall at all times freely discuss the matter, objectively as to its results, we shall not forget to look at the matter subjectively, to find the remedy, which, if we mistake not, is in granting freedom and equality to woman.
