Jamie Stiehm masquerades as a journalist, writing columns for U.S. News and World Report and such. She is, in fact, a highly-biased and lowly-skilled scribbler, a progressive Democrat who has (in her zeal to promote her pet ideological causes) "progressed" way beyond such old-fashioned journalistic virtues as fact-checking, logic, fairness, relevance and grace.In a recent column, for instance, she gives her readers schoolyard sneers instead of solid and accurate reporting. Of Sarah Palin, Ms. Stiehm snarls, "The woman from Alaska does other women no favors. She has no sense of sisterhood, and is not playing the game of politics to further the cause of anyone but herself. Does she even know what year women finally won the right to vote?...Her charms are largely lost on us and our causes. It's men that can't get over her and her bewitching one-woman rodeo..."
Stiehm goes on to bash Palin and, for that matter, all other women who don't fall in with Stiehm's aggressive promotion of abortion. But in her angry screed against the new pro-life women who will enter the Congress and Senate chambers come January, Stiehm dramatically distorts the historical record of early feminist leaders. Those feminists (Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Victoria Woodhull, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell and others) detested abortion.The printed record is clear.
But abortion promoters like Jamie Stiehm don't care about historical facts -- any more than they care about medical facts regarding the extreme dangers abortion creates for mothers -- any more than they care about scientific facts concerning the humanity of the preborn boys and girls that are barbarically dismembered in abortions -- any more than they care about the moral facts concerning the spiritual costs (to individuals and the whole culture) of the bloody holocaust which is legalized abortion.
Stiehm's historical errors are corrected in a follow-up letter to U.S. News by Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, a nationwide organization dedicated to advancing, mobilizing and representing pro-life women in the political process. Writes Dannenfelser,
Jamie Stiehm’s “Sarah Palin Is No Friend of Women in Politics” isn’t the first time feminist history has been rewritten to fit the abortion-centered model, but it is one of the more egregious instances of ignoring current events. Her recent opinion cites the 2010 election results as evidence of the alleged disservice Sarah Palin and pro-life groups like the Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List) have done women by decreasing the overall number of women taking office in 2011.
On one point she is right. 2011 will be the first time in 25 years the overall number of women taking office will not increase. But that doesn’t mean the voice of women in governance is fading. The truth is that authentic female leadership is soaring. The kind of woman now able to serve in all levels of government has been dramatically widened beyond Stiehm’s definition which has dominated the debate for too long.
In the House, the 112th Congress will see a 70 percent increase in the number of pro-life women representatives and a 16 percent decrease in the number of pro-abortion women. Republican Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire will fill the void of a pro-life woman’s voice in the Senate. At the state level, we’ll see a four-fold increase in the number of pro-life women governors.
This wave of pro-life women leaders swept into office seems to have pushed pro-abortion feminists like Stiehm into denial, causing them to ignore the trend and distort historical fact...
[Susan B.] Anthony and her colleagues considered their movement a fight for women and their unborn children. But modern feminists peddling Steihm’s narrative have preached that a woman's rights and her right to an abortion are somehow synonymous.
The recent shift back to the traditional roots of authentic Susan B. Anthony feminism empowers women through their ability to give life--even in the most difficult and unexpected circumstances. And that’s probably what threatens feminists like Jamie Stiehm the most--the prospect that they will lose their monopoly over what defines a feminist to women, like Sarah Palin, who did their history homework.
This election did not ring in the “Year of Jamie Stiehm’s Woman.” Instead, it made 2010 the Year of the Pro-Life Woman and ushered in record numbers of pro-life leaders.
It’s time for Stiehm to face facts.
