Bagpuss; my impression that most pro-lifers are men is not based on my feminist stance; it is based on my direct experience of these groups. I find it strange that you think my perception of something is only based on making sure it conforms to some ideology, rather than what I have seen with my own eyes.

I used to live on Beacon Street in Brookline, Massachusetts. Nearly every Saturday I walked by the Planned Parenthood Clinic to do my laundry, go to the grocery store, or other errands. In my experience of the protesters who stood in front of that clinic every Saturday for four years, the majority of them were men. As a matter of fact, most of the volunteer escorts who helped women into the clinics and protected them from being harassed by anti-abortion protests, were also men. Guess there goes your theory.

Even after John Salvi walked into this clinic with a sawed-off shotgun, and the protesters backed off for a while, when they returned in full force, most of them were men.

I saw it, every week, for four years, as long as I lived there. What I see with my own eyes has NOTHING to do with whether or not I am feminist, or pro-choice, or whatever. I also do not attribute motives to people based on their having an opinion that is opposite from mine. For you to assume this makes you guilty of the same oversimplification (not to mention presumptuousness) you accuse me of.

Your experience of the pro-life movement has apparently been different from mine. But that does not devalue my experience, does it? Even if I do think a woman's right to decide what she does with her own body does take precendent over what happens to a fetus.