I have seen much of my life flash before my eyes.
After 32 years leading Feminists for Life, I’ve been preparing our archives for their new home at Harvard’s Schlesinger Library on the historic Radcliffe campus.
So many of those memories include you. What you and I accomplished together will now be preserved as part of one of the nation’s most prestigious collections devoted to American women’s history.
We made an impact far beyond our size.
Together we raised expectations on campus and in the workplace. We advocated for mothers in the greatest need and connected women with support through our Women Deserve Better® helpsite.
Early on, our images of happy, confident women replaced the sadness and despair that had come to define so much of the conversation. We consistently fought violence against women and children—and supported both women and their children conceived in rape.
We are heralds and helped redirect the contentious abortion debate toward holistic, women-centered solutions.
Over the past three decades, we listened to women who were frightened, in need, or living with regret—and we shared in the joy of their victories. We listened to men, too, and made sure they knew they would not be dismissed and were welcome here.
We taught both pro-life and women’s movements about the pro-life suffrage legacy that had been left out of the history books.
And when I authored the slogan and created the Women Deserve Better® campaign, I had no idea it would become the catchphrase for the movement.
I will remember our times together with fondness and incredible gratitude. Going through decades of newspapers and magazines, I see images of our meetings with famous entertainers, US legislators and world leaders, helping them focus on solutions to bring about a world where children are not seen as the enemy of success, and that motherhood is a form of success in its own right.
Life is an amazing adventure.
Most of all, I will cherish the people: our Board members, staff, and the many volunteers and interns who gave so much of themselves.
I will remember the faces of pro-life students who were relieved—and sometimes surprised—to discover that we existed. I will also remember those who came to protest but changed their minds because we welcomed them, shared women’s history they had never been taught, and invited them to become part of the solution.
I will be forever grateful for the sacrifices of donors who came through for those in need when ideas were big, but our budget was small.
When I look back on my life, I am grateful for the opportunity to have helped vulnerable women and children. That work was possible because you sacrificed for people you may never meet—and because you helped us educate 32 graduating classes who now know that they and their children deserve far better than abortion.
Now we turn toward the future.
As I prepared to step down, I presented the Board with ideas for a new era. The post-Dobbs era is very different from the Roe era. The battle is now being fought in statehouses as well as in the U.S. Capitol. New technologies are emerging that will affect how we work—and life itself.
But no matter what new technologies of fetal demise are pushed on women, we will always be there for mothers and their children.
As president emerita, I will serve as a special adviser to Kara Sorenson-Smith, our new executive director, and to the Board.
I enthusiastically support Kara as my successor, and I embrace the changes she and the staff are preparing to reveal. I ask you to support her as you supported me.
I look forward to cheering you on as you follow in the footsteps of the first great women’s movement—women who, like us, were fearlessly pro-woman and pro-life.
Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and other suffragists never saw their most cherished dreams fulfilled. But there was another generation who would win women’s voting rights led by pro-life suffragist Alice Paul. With perseverance we will triumph—and all women and children will be supported as they deserve.
Walk fast and smart, with urgency and love in your heart. Focus on the work ahead, knowing that lives are at stake every day.
Because women deserve better–and every child deserves life and love,
Serrin M. Foster
President Emerita
Please join the FFL Board of Directors in wishing Serrin Foster much happiness in her retirement after 32 years of visionary leadership at Feminists for Life.