Stories praising Playboy magazine’s founder Hugh Hefner, who died recently, generally ignored his role in “mainstreaming” sexual promiscuity based upon the false belief that females are “sex toys” for the enjoyment of males. The discovery of the birth control pill for women and legalization of abortion enabled fulfillment of the irresponsible male’s desire for sex, free of the fear of pregnancy and birth.
In fact, Playboy was an early financial supporter (along with doctors making big money doing abortions) of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, founded in 1969. Success came in 1973 when an all-male U.S. Supreme Court overturned (7-2) the abortion laws of all 50 states and made abortion on demand at any time during pregnancy a constitutional right.
While Playboy never endorsed rape, it turns out that sometimes women and men have different views of what “consent” means: witness Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein. And what of “consent” for abortion? I challenge the “abortion is a woman’s choice” believers to read about one such “choice” from the 1970s: cosmetics spokeswoman Jennifer O’Neill’s testimony at www.feministsforlife.org under “Herstory” with other voices of women who mourn their abortions and the post-abortion healing resources they found.
