In March 1970, a pregnant woman filed a lawsuit against Henry Wade, the district attorney of Dallas County, Texas, challenging the state’s prohibition of abortion. Filing her suit under the pseudonym Jane Roe, the woman claimed the law violated her Constitutional right to privacy.
 

As the case made its way through the federal courts, individual states began repealing anti-abortion laws or expanding legal exceptions for abortion to include fetal abnormalities and cases of rape and incest. Following the passage of a New York state law permitting abortion upon agreement between a woman and her doctor, Commonweal editors wrote in an April 1970 editorial that “some change in the law was inevitable,” but also admitted to feeling “profoundly uneasy about the national debate on abortion reform.”
 

Only a few months into the new decade, abortion was quickly becoming one of its central issues. And, in the lead up to the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, Commonweal editors tried to distinguish the legal question of abortion from its moral question, while acknowledging that exceptionless bans on abortion no longer commanded general public support.
 

The repeal of anti-abortion laws also highlighted the larger question of whether Christian principles still held influence in an increasingly pluralistic America. Commonweal’s editors and contributors struggled with this question throughout the decade. Amid the polarizing rancor over Roe, they continued to seek an expression of Catholicism “in its varied and highly debatable possibilities” (as founding editor Michael Williams had put it) that could begin to address this and other contemporary concerns at a moment of cultural and political upheaval. 

 

Mary Daly, author of The Church and the Second Sex, was one of the many voices contributing to this debate in the pages of Commonweal. In her essay, “Abortion and Sexual Caste,” which ran in the February 4, 1972, issue of the magazine, Daly discussed the nationwide repeals of anti-abortion laws from an unapologetically feminist perspective, arguing that they should be considered within the context of the ongoing oppression of women in “a birth-ascribed and hierarchically ordered” sexual caste system. 

 

At the center of this system, Daly argued, was patriarchal religion, specifically the Catholic Church, whose opposition to the repeal movement was in keeping with its stance on birth control and divorce, the subordination of women in marriage and in religious life, and the exclusion of women from the ranks of the clergy. “We are rapidly moving into a situation,” she wrote, “in which open war is declared between feminism in this country and official Roman Catholicism.”
 

For their part, Commonweal’s editors lamented the “political impotence of the American Catholic Church” following the Supreme Court’s decision. And while disagreeing with Daly about much else, they believed the American bishops’ rigid opposition to birth control gave them little credibility on other matters of sexual morality and on the emerging debate about the sudden legalization of abortion. 

 

Many of these challenges have persisted ever since. The Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision overturning Roe has forced the country—and the Church—to revisit the question of how the law relates to fundamental moral questions in a pluralistic democracy, and how the Church’s traditional moral teachings relate to feminism. Here, we present Mary Daly’s 1972 essay, along with a few of the many responses it provoked.

In panels and discussions on religion and abortion I frequently have cited my favorite set of statistics: one hundred percent of the bishops who oppose the repeal of anti-abortion laws are men and one hundred percent of the people who have abortions are women. These “statistics” have the double advantage of being both irrefutable and entertaining, thereby placing the speaker in an enviable situation vis-à-vis the audience. More important than this, however, is the fact that this simple juxtaposition of data suggests something of the context in which problems concerning the morality of abortion and the repeal of anti-abortion laws should be understood. That is, I’m proposing that the issue of the repeal of anti-abortion laws should be seen within the wide context of the oppression of women in sexually hierarchical society.

Society as we know it is characterized by a sexual caste system in which men and women constitute birth-ascribed, hierarchically ordered groups, having unequal access to “goods, services, prestige, and well-being” (from Berreman’s description of caste). There is already available abundant researched material demonstrating the existence of such social inequality of the sexes in all basic areas: access to income, occupational specialization, prestige, self-esteem, behavior, sexual privileges, and institutional power. All of this is enforced through sex role segregation, which in some ways is more devastating than spatial segregation (as in a ghetto), for it prevents comparisons and masks inequalities.

Patriarchal religion—in its various forms with their varying degrees of intensity—functions to legitimate sexual caste, affirming that it is in harmony with “nature” and “God’s plan.” It does this in a number of interrelated ways, and I am proposing that rigidity on the abortion issue should be seen as part of the syndrome. It is less than realistic to ignore the evidence suggesting that within Roman Catholicism the “official” opposition to the repeal of anti-abortion laws is profoundly interconnected—on the level of motivations, basic assumptions, and style of argumentation—with positions on other issues. Such interconnected issues include birth control, divorce, the subordination of women in marriage and in religious life, and the exclusion of women from the ranks of the clergy. 

The fact that all of the major ethical studies of the abortion problem have been done by men is itself symptomatic of women’s oppressed condition. The concepts, terminology, and modes of questioning and reasoning in theology and philosophy all have been devised by men under the conditions of patriarchy. As Simone de Beauvoir pointed out, women have been obliged to exhaust themselves just in the process of survival and, in the case of feminists, of breaking through the barriers imposed upon their sex. They have had little energy left for developing a real opposition to the prevailing culture. Moreover, as is the case in all oppressed groups, women suffer from a duality of consciousness, having internalized the consciousness of the superordinate group. Divided within themselves and against themselves, women by and large have not been able to challenge the value system of the dominant elite, even in matters vitally affecting their own lives. 

Since the condition of sexual caste has been camouflaged so successfully by sex role segregation, it has been difficult to perceive anti-abortion laws and anti-abortion ethical arguments within this context. Yet it is only by perceiving them within this total environment of patriarchal bias that it is possible to assess realistically how they function in society. If, for example, one-sided arguments using such loaded terminology as “the murder of the unborn child” are viewed as independent units of thought unrelated to the kind of society in which they were formulated, then they may well appear plausible and cogent. However, once the fact of sexual caste and its implications have been unveiled, such arguments and the laws they attempt to justify can be recognized as consistent with the rationalizations of a system that oppresses women but incongruous with the experience and needs of women. 

A number of male-authored essays on abortion that have appeared recently in liberal publications (including Commonweal) have been praised for their “clarity” and “objectivity.” Yet in many cases, I suggest, such articles give the illusion of clarity precisely because they concentrate upon some selected facts or data while leaving out of consideration the assumptions, attitudes, stereotypes, customs and arrangements which make up the fabric of the world in which the problem of abortion arises. Moreover, upon closer examination, their “objectivity” can be seen as the detachment of an external judge who a) does not share or comprehend the experience of the women whose lives are deeply involved and b) has by reason of his privileged situation within the sexual caste system a built-in vested interest opposed to the interest of those most immediately concerned. 

Illustrative of this problem is an article by Professor George Huntston Williams of Harvard in which the author proposes as a model for the politics of abortion a “sacred condominium” in which the progenitors and the “body politic...share sovereignty in varying degrees and in varying circumstances.” As he develops his thesis, it becomes evident, I think, that the woman’s judgment is submerged in the condominium, and that the theory’s pretensions to offer reasonable solutions are belied by the realities of sexual politics in the society in which we actually live. Basically, Professor Williams’s theory ignores the fact that since men and women are not social equals, the representatives of the male-dominated “body politic” cannot be assumed to judge without bias. It also overlooks the fact that the “progenitors” do not have equal roles in the entire reproductive process, since it is obviously the woman who has the burden of pregnancy and since under prevailing social conditions the task of upbringing is left chiefly and sometimes solely to the woman. It disregards the fact that the male sometimes deserts his wife or companion (or threatens desertion) in a situation of unwanted pregnancy. 

The inadequacies of Professor Williams’s approach are evident in his treatment of the problem of abortion in the case of rape. He writes: 

Society’s role...would be limited to ascertaining the validity of the charge of rape. Here the principals in the condominium could be at odds in assessing the case and require specialized arbitration. If this were the case, the medical and legal professions could be called upon together with that of social work. But even if rape is demonstrable (italics mine) the mother may surely assent to the continuance of the misplaced life within her… (from “The Sacred Condominium,” in The Morality of Abortion, edited by John Noonan). 

What is left out in this eloquent, multisyllabic, and seemingly rational discussion? First, it does not take into consideration the bias of a society which is male-controlled and serves male interests. Second, (and implied in the first point), it leaves out the fact that it is very difficult to prove rape. In New York State, for example, one must have corroborating evidence to convict a man of rape. In some states, if the man accused of rape was known previously by the woman, this fact can be used in his defense. According to the laws of many states, it is impossible for a man to rape his wife. Moreover, women who have been raped and who have attempted to report the crime to the police frequently have reported that the police treated them with ridicule and contempt, insinuating that they must have worn provocative clothing or invited the attack in some way. The whole mechanism of “blaming the victim” thus works against them, adding to the trauma and suffering already endured. Nor are the police alone in taking this view of the situation. Their judgment reflects the same basic attitude of sexist society which is given physical expression in the rapist’s act. 

The kind of spiritual counseling that women frequently receive within the “sacred condominium” is exemplified in an article by Fr. Bernard Haring. Writing of the woman who has been raped, he says: 

We must, however, try to motivate her [italics his] to consider the child with love because of its subjective innocence, and to bear it in suffering through to birth, whereupon she may consider her enforced maternal obligation fulfilled [italics mine] and may give over the child to a religious or governmental agency, after which she would try to resume her life with the sanctity that she will undoubtedly have achieved through the great sacrifice and suffering (from “A Theological Evolution,” in The Morality of Abortion, edited by John Noonan). 

Fr. Haring adds that if she has already “yielded to the violent temptation” to rid herself of the effects of her experience, “we can leave the judgment of the degree of her sin to a merciful God.” Those who are familiar with “spiritual counseling” have some idea of what could be implied in the expression “try to motivate her.” Despite Fr. Haring’s intention to be compassionate, his solution, I submit, is not adequate. The paternalistic and intimidating atmosphere of “spiritual counseling” is not generally conducive to free and responsible decision-making, and can indeed result in “enforced, maternal obligation.” The author does not perceive the irony of his argument, which is visible only when one sees the “environment” of the woman’s predicament. She lives in a world in which not only the rapist but frequently also the priest view her as an object to be manipulated—in one case physically, and in the other case psychologically. Machismo religion, in which only men do spiritual counseling, asks her to endure a double violation, adding the rape of her mind to that of her body. As Mrs. Robinson of the once popular hit song knew: “Any way you look at it, you lose.” 

Feminist ethics—yet to be developed because women have yet to be free enough to think out their own experience—will differ from all of this in that it will refuse to give attention merely to the isolated physical act involved in abortion, and will insist upon seeing this within its social context. Christian moralists generally have paid attention to context when dealing with such problems as killing in self-defense and in war. They have found it possible to admit the existence of a “just war” within which the concept of “murder” generally does not apply, and have permitted killing in self-defense and in the case of capital punishment. They have allowed to pass unheeded the fact that by social indifference a large proportion of the earth’s population is left to die of starvation in childhood. All of these situations are viewed as at least more complex than murder. Yet when the question of abortion is raised, frequently it is only the isolated material act that is brought into focus. The traditional maxim that circumstances affect the morality of an action is all but forgotten or else rendered non-operative through a myopic view of the circumstances. Feminists perceive the fact of exceptional reasoning in the case of abortion as related to the general situation. They ask the obviously significant (but frequently overlooked) question: Just who is doing the reasoning and who is forced to bear unwanted children? 

Feminist ethics, as I envisage it, will see a different and more complex human meaning in the act of abortion. Rather than judging universally in black and white categories of “right” and “wrong” it will be inclined to make graded evaluations of choices in such complex situations as those in which the question of abortion concretely arises. It will attempt to help women to orchestrate the various elements that come into play in the situation, including the needs of the woman as a person, the rights of women as an oppressed class, the requirements of the species in adapting to changing conditions, such as overpopulation, the positive obligations of the woman as the mother of other children or as a professional, the negative aspects of her situation in a society which rewards the production of unwanted children with shame and poverty. It will take into consideration the fact that since the completely safe and adequate means of birth control does not yet exist, women are at the mercy of their reproductive systems. 

As I have indicated elsewhere (Commonweal, March 12, 1971) the women’s movement is bringing into being a new consciousness which is beginning to challenge the symbols and the ethics of patriarchal religion. The transvaluation of values which is beginning to take place affects not only thinking on abortion, but the whole spectrum of moral questions. The ethic emerging from the movement has as its primary emphasis not self-abnegation but self-affirmation in community with others. The kind of suffering that it values is that which is endured in acting to overcome an oppressive situation rather than that which accompanies abject submission to such a situation. 

Although repudiation of the passive ethic of authoritarian religion is not new, what is new is the fact that women are giving expression to it, personally, corporately and politically. Those who have been socialized most profoundly to live out the passive ethic are renouncing it and affirming instead a style of human existence that has existential courage as its dominant motif. In challenging the patriarchal authority structure, women are developing in themselves the quality of courage required to face the ambiguities of the human situation. This courage implies taking intellectual and moral risks. It is qualitatively different from the “fortitude”  extolled in authoritarian society and epitomized in the attitude of the soldier who faces death in blind obedience to his superior’s command. The kind of attitude it inspires is not likely to be appreciated by the military-industrial complex. 

At this moment in history the abortion issue has become a focal point for dramatic conflict between the ethic of patriarchal authoritarianism and the ethic of courage to confront ambiguity. When concrete decisions have to be made concerning whether or not to have an abortion, a complex web of circumstances demands consideration. There are no adequate textbook answers. Essentially women are saying that because there is ambiguity surrounding the whole question and because sexually hierarchical society is stacked against women, abortion is not appropriately a matter of criminal law. In our society as it is, no laws can cover the situation justly. Abortion “reform” generally works out in a discriminatory way and is not an effective deterrent to illegal abortions. Thousands of women who have felt desperate enough to resort to criminal abortions have been subjected to psychological and physical barbarities, and sometimes these have resulted in death. 

At this point it may be appropriate to consider the “pacifist” argument concerning abortion presented by Gordon Zahn (“A Religious Pacifist Looks at Abortion,” Commonweal, May 28, 1971). In its own way, this article is also illustrative of non-comprehension of women’s situation. The response of Commonweal readers to it was apparently positive, praising its lucidity and logic. At least this would seem to be indicated by most of the letters that were printed, all of which were from men, with one exception, which was from a nun. However, it is unlikely that many feminists would be impressed. Indeed, the article is particularly enigmatic because Professor Zahn, in addressing his critique to what he imagines to be the women’s liberationists’ point of view, by his own admission, refuses to deal with “the legislative question.” This leads to considerable mystification since the issue being raised by the women’s movement is precisely the repeal of anti-abortion laws. There is not merely one single view of the morality of abortion among feminists. Yet there is an almost universal consensus that it should be removed from criminal law. Pacifists such as Gordon Zahn are free to refuse to defend themselves if physically attacked, but a legal system that would condemn taking the necessary means for self-defense would be inappropriate to the human condition. So also a woman may take a “pacifist” position in regard to an unwanted pregnancy and refuse to have an abortion. However, a woman also might reasonably decide that, in her circumstances, having an abortion would be the better part of valor. Attempting to exclude such decisions by legislation is, I think, unrealistic and inappropriate. It is generally unwise to try to legislate heroism. Feminists point out, moreover, that bringing an unwanted child into the world is even a questionable form of heroism. It would seem particularly unwise to try to enforce through criminal law a species of self-sacrifice whose consequences are dubious at best, and often tragic.

Women—many of them victims also of economic and racial oppression—have just begun to cry out publicly about their rights over their own bodies. That academics find this language unsatisfactory as a complete moral methodology is understandable. Their inability to listen to what is being said, however, is deplorable. Women are making explicit the dimension that traditional morality and abortion legislation simply have not taken into account: the realities of their existence as an oppressed caste of human beings. I think the fact that Professor Zahn just does not hear these voices of experience is indicated by a number of statements. For example, his claim that science has provided sufficient means for avoiding the beginning of the life process is out of touch with the realities of individual situations. His admonition that one should acknowledge the consequences of the sex act is of high moral tone, but it doesn’t have much meaning when applied after the fact to the case of an economically and culturally deprived adolescent. As for the “rights of the putative father”—Professor Zahn really should speak to a few young women who would be willing to tell it to him like it is. 

As the movement for the repeal of anti-abortion laws gains momentum, we are rapidly moving into a situation in which open war is declared between feminism in this country and official Roman Catholicism. I use the word “official” advisedly, since this position hardly represents the thinking of all Catholics. The anti-feminine discriminations within the church have, of course, been known in a general way by feminists, but these for the most part have seemed irrelevant to their own lives. As this issue surfaces more and more, however, women are seeing the church as their enemy. For its part, the institutional church is focusing its tremendous lobbying power on the issue. As one woman pointed out, it is well organized and has plenty of money to spend. 

Women did not arbitrarily choose abortion as part of their platform. It has arisen out of the realities of their situation. On its deepest level, I think the issue is not as different from the issue of birth control as many, particularly liberal Catholics, would make it appear. There are deep questions involved which touch the very meaning of human existence. Are we going to let “nature” take its course or take the decision into our own hands? In the latter case, who will decide? What the women’s movement is saying is that decisions will be made affecting the processes of “nature,” and that women as individuals will make the decisions in matters most intimately concerning themselves. I think that this, on the deepest level, is what authoritarian religion fears. Surely its greatest fear is not the destruction of life, as its record on other issues reveals. 

Declaration of war between the women’s movement and the official church should come as no surprise. Yet there are certain deep ironies and tragic conflicts here, for there is widespread spiritual consciousness in the movement. Among its leaders and theoreticians are women who are spiritual expatriates. Having seen through the idolatries and the oppressive bias of patriarchal religion, they have found that their sense of transcendence and creative hopes can be expressed within the movement but not in the institutional churches. For such women the movement functions as “space” set apart—a province primarily of the mind—in which they experience authenticity and freedom. It is the space where they need not go through the mendacious contortions of mind, will and imagination demanded of them by sexist society and sexist religion. It is a charismatic community, and its mission is based upon the promise within women themselves, their undeveloped potential. The women’s movement is anti-church in the sense of being in conflict with sexist religion as sexist. At the same time, it is expressing dimensions of human truth that the institutional churches have failed to incarnate and express. 

What can be the role of a living, healing, prophetic church in this situation? I suggest that the work of such a community, wherever that may exist—underground, above-ground, “inside” or “outside” the official church—will not be to cut off the possibility for women to make free and courageous decisions, either by lobbying to prevent the repeal of anti-abortion laws or by psychological manipulation. I think that it will try to hear what women are saying and to support their demands for the repeal of unjust laws.

In addition to this, and more importantly, I suggest that a living church will try to point beyond abortion to more fundamental solutions. That is, it will work toward the development of a social context in which the problem of abortion will not arise. As a catalyst for social change, it will foster research into more adequate and safer means of birth control. As an educative force, it will make available information about the better means now in existence, for example, vasectomy. Most fundamentally, as a prophetic and healing community it will work to eradicate sex-role socialization and the sexual caste system itself, which in many ways works toward the entrapment of women in situations of being burdened with unwanted pregnancies. I think it should be clear that authentic religion will point beyond abortion, not by instilling fear and guilt, but by inspiring the kind of personal, social and technological creativity that can, in the long run, make abortion a non-problem. 

Responses:

Theology’s Failure

I should like to applaud the author’s keen analysis of a pivotal point concerning the abortion issue—that is, the failure of theology to recognize or foster a body of feminist ethics.

Her insight into the nature of the women’s movement (it manifests a desire to assume, not abnegate, responsibility) and the relation of the abortion issue to that larger demand for psychological and spiritual freedom adds the dimension that is always lacking when Catholic intellectuals debate the morality of abortion. (But, then, as Daly notes, the debating teams are all-male clubs.)

As a self-styled “spiritual expatriate” from organized religion and a young woman who carries the scars of spiritual loneliness rendered during years of formal schooling in a male-dominated church, I can only second with enthusiasm and bear witness to the author’s perception that the women’s movement “is expressing dimensions of human truth that the institutional churches have failed to incarnate and express.”

Michele Fuetsch 
Palo Alto, Calif.

An Ethical Problem

Mary Daly seems to be saying throughout her article that resistance to abortion-law “reform,” especially by men, unfeelingly contributes to just those oppressive social factors (created by men in the first place) that have made abortion the vehement issue it is today. But this argument is objectionable not only because it imposes on men a subtle form of coercion-by-guilt, but mostly because this position is founded on a hidden presupposition that continually obscures the real issue.

And the real issue is this: that abortion is an ethical problem centering around the justification (if any) for the killing of human, fetal life. Ms. Daly consistently treats abortion as a sociological problem, a manifestation of the oppressed status of women, as if prohibition of abortion were an expression of a societal taboo irrationally chaining women to degrading domestic roles rather than a conscious stance regarding the humanity of the fetus and its consequent right to legal protection.

This hidden presupposition appears so often in pro-abortion arguments that it is becoming downright maddening. By not confronting the arguments of those who maintain that fetuses are human (and in their weakness deserving of legal protection), pro-abortionists are forced, by their own logic, to a very ugly position: that human oppression warrants the killing of other (and innocent) human life. Well, does the present social practice of leaving most of the child-rearing to the mother (assuming that this is oppressive) warrant the killing of the child? Do parents who are poor and oppressed have the right to “terminate the life” (as the expression goes) of their offspring? Such questions seem crass and sensationalistic in the extreme, but to me are inevitable as long as the abortion debate does not center around the humanity of the fetus. This is precisely where Mary Daly’s article begs the question. Why, for instance, of Commonweal’s two major articles on abortion did she choose to argue against Gordon Zahn’s—one that spoke from a particular tradition and pointed out an inconsistency within that tradition—rather than Richard Stith’s article with its very effective rebuttal of positions maintaining the non-humanity of the fetus? Such a failure to take real issue with the heart and root of the anti-abortion argument has made Ms. Daly’s essay one large, albeit subtle, ad hominem argument (I trust the phrase is permissible). So to answer her set of statistics that 100 percent of the bishops who oppose abortion are men and 100 percent of the people who have abortions are women, I simply wish to ask: What at all does that have to do with the rights of the unborn, developing human? 

Edward X. Oakes 
St. Louis, Mo. 

Contradictions 

Mary Daly’s article on “Abortion and Sexual Caste” is a tragedy of contradictions to me. I fully support the position that a woman is a full human being with rights equal to that of her male counterpart. I believe in the woman’s freedom, in her charisma, in her authenticity. It is precisely because we are free that we are able to accept other persons. 

I find statements like “women are at the mercy of their reproductive systems” inconsistent with this freedom. Sex is a free act, not an enforced act. I do appreciate that a young teenager often has a woeful lack of information, yet, based on material taken from Depth Psychology and from our own educational groups for teenagers who have been in difficulty as a result of their sexual behavior, I know that many times on a very deep level, particularly the older teenager and woman experienced the need for pregnancy so profoundly that contraceptive “failure” ensued. 

What Ms. Daly appears to overlook is that a woman’s freedom pertains to the woman and not to the person whom she carries within her, namely her unborn child. To demand freedom for oneself and at the same time demand the right to deny this freedom to one’s own child is to me inconsistent if not incomprehensible. One cannot actually, to me, speak affirmation and at the same time deny someone else’s right to be. Abortion is a very expedient, quick solution, but what it does in the long run to persons has not yet been appreciated. 

As the recent Kennedy Symposium demonstrated, there is no argument for abortion which cannot be equally well applied to infanticide. If this is the kind of free society which the Feminist Movement is trying to build I do not consider it an improvement over the present situation. 

Hanna Klaus, MD 
Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics School of Medicine
Saint Louis University 
Saint Louis, Mo. 

Eloquent 

The hand that rocks the cradle vehemently applauds Mary Daly’s article, a perceptive observation of the oppressed feminine state in relation to “patriarchal religion.” We at home among the laundry baskets and lunch pails welcome your printing as eloquent a spokeswoman for the feminine cause as Ms. Daly. She and other informed women are becoming convinced that not only on the issue of abortion laws are they at war with the official church. The supremely chauvinistic bias of traditional religion and especially the Catholic church has become increasingly unacceptable to those women who recognize their human right to “free and courageous decisions” in matters as uniquely personal as abortion. 

Women like Mary Daly write for all of us who refuse to accept unquestioningly the pastel-statue image of idolized motherhood that was supposed to content us. We are becoming aware of our talents and abilities, beginning to choose for ourselves, to voice our convictions on important issues such as legalized abortion. A few fortunate ones among us have the encouragement of the sensitive men we love, exceptional men who value us most not as housekeepers or sex objects but as individuals. Much of my own sympathy with the feminist movement arises from my feeling that it can make people conscious of the beautiful kind of relationship that is possible when a man and a woman genuinely respect one another’s personal integrity. A church desperately in need of a new approach might find a wealth of untapped creative reserve among the ironers of its altar linens. At this time, however, I see little hope that the leaders of the Catholic church will be able to overcome their prejudice against women very soon, particularly when they have recently reaffirmed this bias with a vengeance in the celibacy argument. As Mary Daly says, by pointing beyond abortion, the church has an option to make a significant contribution to destroying the sexual caste system. Judging by its historical patterns of action, though, it will refuse again to hear, this time what the feminists are saying, and they, as have many of its talented and energetic members, will turn to whatever more creative groups and organizations support their search for growth as free and loving persons. 

Marsha Hughes
Oceanside, Calif.