Flowers: Women's March hardly inclusive if it excludes pro-life women

CALL IT the "People With Uteruses Who Hate Donald Trump March" . . . Or the "Birth Control, Not Self Control March." Or the "LGBTQI-Want-To-Buy-A-Vowel-Vanna March." Or, as my good friend Tania Gail suggested, the "#MeanGirlMarch2017."

Whatever you call it, though, don't call it the "Women's March on Washington." Technically, that is correct. Women are involved, and they are marching, or walking, or striding, or jumping or doing whatever it is they need to do to make themselves seen and heard the day after the inauguration of the Dark Prince of Death. In D.C.

Live updates: Get the latest on Donald Trump's inauguration here.

But calling it the "Women's March" gives it a bit too much credit for inclusivity because not all of us who self-identify as women (perhaps not even the recently commuted Chelsea Manning) are welcome at the march.

I know of at least one group that was specifically disinvited from the affair, a group whose name would indicate a strong sisterhood with the galloping gals. The group is called the New Wave Feminists. That's pretty darn crunchy, fist in the air, we-love-Gloria cool. But alas, there is a fly in the vaginal ointment. The "New Wave" women happen to be pro-life or, if you prefer, anti-the-choice-to-abort-your-child. When the organizers of the march found out that they had invited poisonous vipers into their collective bosom, they told the New Wavers that there was no place for them in D.C.

Actually, they didn't even do that. They just erased the group, which had been included on the website as a contributing partner, from view. The poor dears were exiled to Cyber Siberia (Cyberia?)

Normally, things like this don't bother me. I am quite used to women who call themselves feminists acting in a most unsisterly way when they find out that I oppose abortion. In this, I am not alone. Many pro-life female friends have had the same experience when their dirty little secret is discovered: banishment from the Oprah Book Club, blocking on Facebook, ridicule at the water cooler and sympathetic hazing from the men who support abortion rights because, let's be honest, it saves them 18 years' worth of child support.

I didn't really expect that women who vocally oppose abortion would be welcome at a march that embraced groups like #VoteProChoice, Free the Nipple, the Human Right to Family Planning Initiative, Students for Choice, Lady Parts Justice, The Center for Reproductive Rights, Catholics for Choice (their motto is a female unicorn wearing a Roman collar), NARAL-Pro Choice America Foundation, the Coalition of Nasty Women, the Federation for Abortion Rights, the National Organization for Women and, of course, Planned Parenthood.

I mean, if I were a fertilized embryo, there is no way I'd go anywhere near that motley crew. But some other groups included on the website seemed promising, some faith-based groups like Faith in New York (I think it has three members), the World Fellowship Center, Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, Jewish Women's Foundation and the Council on American Islamic Relations. That seemed like an ecumenical enough group to include women who believe, as I do, that women who are still incubating in the womb have a voice and a right to be respected.

Think again, Christine. You are not considered a true woman unless you accept the nihilistic proposition that the vagina is private property, that a fetus is an interloper who occupies that site at the pleasure of the owner and that eviction can happen at any time, for virtually any reason, up until the moment of actual birth.

Of course, you might be clucking your tongue, shaking your head and getting ready to consign this op-ed to the bottom of the bird cage, completely shocked that a 21st-century woman could express, let alone harbor, such beliefs. I wouldn't blame you if you did because it doesn't get much better from this point on. But if you are interested enough to leave Tweety to his own devices for the last few paragraphs, here is why I really think that the Women's March is a farce.

The groups that have partnered together to present their grievances in D.C. all claim to support the integrity and dignity of the sisterhood. The reason that so many pro-choice/abortion-friendly groups are included in the list of attendees is because it is now mandatory that evolved women spout the usual "my body, my choice" rhetoric that hasn't changed in 50 years, even though medical technology has advanced to the stage that we now know it's "my body, and her tiny body and his tiny body, but still my choice, dammit."

I have a problem with that, but I'm used to the indoctrination feminists demand of the truest of true believers. For want of a better term, women who want to be fully accepted into the feminist fold are like "Womanchurian candidates," brainwashed into believing that the only way to find dignity and independence is the unassailable right to abort. Well, that and pay parity.

But I could even get over that if I truly believed feminists cared about the welfare of women in the larger context of human rights. As it is, I think they care only about the welfare of Roe v. Wade.

Returning to that list of "partners" in the march, we have the Council on American Islamic Relations. CAIR, as it is more commonly known, refuses to condemn Hamas, which has been identified by the State Department as a terrorist group since Oct. 8, 1997. It is nice to know that the women storming DC this week see the defenseless fetus as a threat, but have no problem welcoming women who belong to a group that, according to the FBI, traffics with terrorists.

But the women in D.C. will see this as quibbling. As long as they can keep those toxic pro-lifers from mucking up the works and ruining the joyous celebration of "safe, legal and whenever you want it," they can afford a terrorist or two. Because these days, the enemy of my president is my friend. Even if he's on a watch list.

Christine Flowers is a lawyer.

cflowers1961@gmail.com

@flowerlady61