Feminism as most know it is considered a mid-twentieth century political movement, but feminists would claim their struggle goes back to the suffrage movement of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when women demanded the right to vote and eventually won with ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution in 1920. Around 1960, a new women’s movement started to emerge.

Activists, like Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug, and Gloria Steinem, formed modern feminism. They claimed women were disadvantaged legally and financially, so they said they were fighting for equal rights for women. They also insisted women were oppressed by the limitations of homemaker, motherhood, and wife; they complained women were trapped in traditional roles and shut out of the world of men. So, they demanded an end to the “patriarchy,” a male centered world.

There have always been accomplished and powerful women throughout history, so there really has not been a question about if women are capable – they certainly and obviously are. The issue was access to business, politics and certain vocations; in some circles women were not even considered, so they had a point to demand the opportunity to compete in every realm.

All Americans intrinsically support equal rights and opportunity for everyone, but feminism went astray with its obsession with the patriarchy. In their demands to break down barriers to male dominated business and professional realms, feminists not only denied traditional female roles, they denigrated and maligned marriage and motherhood. They declared that women that stayed home to raise their children were not living up to their potential.

The categorical dismissal of motherhood as an inferior contribution to society is utterly absurd. The most noble and impactful contribution in all humanity is motherhood. Every accomplishment in life eventually fades from memory and history, but a mother’s love and the new life brought forth is eternal. There is no more important job on the earth, so feminists mocking motherhood set them on a false premise.

Women completing alongside men is not objectionable, but feminists essentially said they no longer wanted to be women. They asserted for a woman to achieve her maximum potential; she must deny here natural inclination to be a mother and go be a man. Half a century later, the cynical twist is that leftist women are still struggling to be like men, but now with crazy transgender mania, men can be women.

Early feminist activist, Gloria Steinem, made her debut as an undercover Playboy Bunny exposing sexual exploitation and objectification of women, but the irony is feminism went on to tell women to abandon traditional sexual mores so they could have random sex without consequences supposedly like men. A member of the Women’s Action Alliance, Steinem went on to found Ms Magazine, but before all that, she claimed abortion made her a feminist.

A young Steinem was on her way to India when an unexpected pregnancy jeopardized her travel plans. Abortion was illegal in 1957, but she found a doctor in London who would covertly authorize the abortion. She later recounted the doctor admonished her to never name him and “do with her life what she wanted.” Steinem proceeded with the murder of her unborn child and went on to India. In 2015, she dedicated her memoir to the long-deceased abortionist who helped her sacrifice an innocent life without consequence so she could live her life.

Abortion or more accurately child sacrifice is the holy grail of feminism because it relieves women from the obligations of motherhood. Feminists and leftists will absurdly argue it’s not a life; it’s just a clump of cells. They swore it should be rare, but more than 60 million babies have been slaughtered in the womb in just the USA since Roe versus Wade. They fiercely resisted any limitations on abortion; and now that abortion has been returned to the states, godless Massachusetts passed the extreme law that allows abortion through the full nine months of pregnancy – a baby can be legally killed right up to the moment before delivery! Pure evil.

Shockingly but perhaps predictably, that’s not enough. Again in Massachusetts, Lindsey Clancy methodically strangled her three children after sending her husband away, but her protracted trial resulted in a mistrial due to one courageous hold out juror who could not get past the fact that Clancy viciously murdered her three children. However, the other 11 jurors were prepared to not hold Clancy criminally responsible due to severe postpartum depression.

Feminists around the nation rushed to defend Clancy. Clancy is a woman of privilege with a nanny and ample support, but feminists want to blame the medications, her hormones, the oppression of motherhood, and of course her husband. Clancy was certainly troubled, but there still should be consequences for callously strangling three little children one after another.

Some may be inclined to think feminism died with the recent passing of Steinem, but feminism died when the movement was adamant Clancy be absolved of her heinous actions because of postpartum depression.

After decades of scolding Americans that women can do anything men can do, feminists now admit when their hormones go awry women should not be held accountable. If Clancy is not culpable for her actions, how can we trust any woman in a position of authority? This precedent is that any destructive or rash action by a woman can be excused by postpartum depression, premenstrual syndrome, or menopause. Therefore, no woman can be entrusted with weighty decisions like the death penalty or the use of nuclear weapons.

If female hormones are woefully unpredictable and potentially unmanageable such that women can escape accountability, they should never be given great responsibility. According to feminists, men have a dangerous hormone that leads to toxic masculinity, but men cannot be and are never excused from accountability due to testosterone. So, feminism died with their declaration women cannot be accountable.

The point is not to drive women from the workplace or authority, but if women want to play big boy games, they have to play by big boy rules. If Clancy’s husband had strangled her three children, he would be facing the death penalty, no questions asked. There should not be a double standard if women have equal rights with equal accountability.

The other overarching point is feminism is built on the bloody altar of abortion. They not only want to murder their children; they want to destroy the traditional family which minimizes women’s most important contribution to civilization – motherhood.

Clancy will be held accountable in eternity when she again encounters her three children brutally slain by her hands. Steinem also has been held accountable when she finally met the young life she snuffed out in 1957 so she could go to India. Pray that feminism is finally dead so that no more women will be misled into the darkness of abortion.

“And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each human being, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being.” Genesis 9:5

Pete Riehm is a Navy Veteran, conservative activist, and columnist in south Alabama. Email him at peteriehm@bellsouth.net or read all his columns at http://www.renewamerica.com/.