Targeting Phyllis Schlafly is not the only goal of Episode Two in the Mrs. America miniseries. Abortion is introduced as a prominent issue. Focusing on Gloria Steinem, the episode highlights her abortion and her dreams as a woman.
Hollywood’s ill-researched depiction of Gloria is that of a dreamer on behalf of women everywhere. In the debut of her magazine, she states, “A majority of people in this country support every woman’s right to control her own body. Until we have that right, we can never truly be equal.”
Phyllis directed the continual defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment because of its support of both abortion and homosexual “marriage.” She explained that in 1983 Wisconsin and Minnesota attempted to resurrect the ERA excluding abortion. Wisconsin saw, “the leading ERA advocates (including the National Organization for Women, the League of Women Voters, and the American Civil Liberties Union) publicly opposed ERA in this form” as it failed to impose “abortion funding and gay rights.” The same thing occurred in Minnesota. [SOURCE PSR Sept. 1986]
Reading the Phyllis Schlafly Report further, one can clearly see that the “majority of people in this country” did not support abortion. This is further backed within the episode itself by Steinem’s proposal to change abortion to “reproductive freedom.” Using indecisive language speaks to an agenda, which Phyllis enumerates upon in her newsletter.
Toward the end of the episode, Steinem states, “How many more women are going to die from botched abortions?… How many women are gonna be forced to give birth to babies they can’t afford to feed, while we wait for housewives, who have no idea what it’s like to work to survive, to feel comfortable with women having power?”
Feminism boasts of sisterhood, but here again it is visible that they are not for all women. Brenda Fasteau’s character admits before this, “We are against them [housewives].” Phyllis wrote in February 1972, that the feminists were “waging a total assault on the family, on marriage, and on children.” Promoting abortion is evidence of this.
Today, abortion is an issue still intensely debated. A blind and invasive procedure, women are endangered daily and children are killed.
Hollywood,“The Land of Dreams” is a smokescreen promoting falsities and nightmares both blinding and binding the American people to believe that murder is encompassed in “the pursuit of happiness.” What Hollywood fails to realize is that a culture of life preserves “the pursuit of happiness” for both mother and child.