January 2026
FFL President Serrin M. Foster to retire…the search begins
Dear Feminists for Life,
On 4/4/94 I started the adventure of a lifetime, first as Executive Director, then President of Feminists for Life of America. I was 38 years old and knew it would be a huge risk to take on as feminism was supposedly at odds with the pro-life position. But from the moment I saw an ad for a pro-woman, pro-life leader, I knew in my heart that everything in my life had prepared me for this vocation.
After four interviews for a job that ultimately paid $15K, (a dramatic decrease from the secure position I had left at a health care agency), I started in a small, windowless, asbestos-filled office with no mission, no programs, no legislative priorities, a few inches of donor names on index cards—and terrifying debt.
The Board and I set out immediately to rectify all of that.
We went to work on Capitol Hill passing the Violence against Women Act, defeating the mandatory family cap in welfare reform that would deny the assistance to poor mothers and their babies—and passing the Child Support Enforcement Act to help stop coerced abortion from threats of withholding financial support. I also testified in support of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act.
Meanwhile, we created a comprehensive College Outreach Program which included the crown jewel— the Pregnancy and Parenting Resource Forum. Our new ad campaign prompted Planned Parenthood’s INsider magazine to predict we would have a profound effect on their target market: college students. They were right.
Ten years later, their former research arm, the Guttmacher Institute, reported a remarkable 30% decrease in abortion by college-aged women.
More recently, we expanded the program to high schools and our Girls Deserve Better program. Educating students from across the country, Canada, and Europe and mentoring many over three decades has been the joy of a lifetime.
I see our former interns on the news and making news, including one, now a reporter, whom I recently saw in the Oval Office asking the President pertinent questions.
We began publishing The American Feminist, first as a newsletter then magazine. We developed three websites: feministsforlife.org, womendeservebetter.com, and girlsdeservebetter.org and each with their own social media to better serve, educate and advocate.
I could go on. But it is our disproportionate influence that has been most rewarding to me, especially transforming college campuses through our Pregnancy and Parenting Resource Forums.
Early on our look elevated not just FFL, but inspired the entire movement. Images of depressed women who couldn’t show their faces were replaced by joyous, confident women.
We witnessed one party incorporate our registered slogan, “Women Deserve Better® than Abortion” and the other embrace our call for resources and support in their party platforms. Pope John Paul II, now a saint, would call for a “new feminism” in section 99 of “Evangelium Vitae.” The “Gospel of Life”, gave FFL the imprimatur that we never sought.
People joined us that were famous in their own right including award-winning actors, American legislators, international leaders, and women’s history professors. And when I attended the wedding of our Board Executive Vice President and counsel as she married another DC attorney, who knew we would end up being drawn into the heated nomination for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court?
Who knew that a visit to a new doctor would lead me to bring him as a former abortion provider to advocate a pro-life bill to protect teens from older men taking minors to abortion clinics? And that his op-ed would appear in the Sunday edition of the New York Times editorial page right before the House vote—and that he would continue to successfully lobby with me on the Senate side?
I watched the programs we created become the work of other groups who immediately recognized the value of focusing on the future leaders of our country.
Our Women Deserve Better campaign became the catch phrase of the movement for 25 years, and remains so to this day.
Yes, like the early American feminists whose pro-life sentiments we first researched and revealed, we are heralds sharing a vision of hope and promise of better times through better solutions.
Who knew that my speech, “The Feminist Case Against Abortion” would be included in an anthology called Women’s Rights, one in a series called “Great Speeches in History” along with other pro-life suffragists, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto? Or that I would have the honor to present that speech on the 150th anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention.
A friend sent me a card for my most recent birthday which read, “70?? How the heck did that happen!!” I have no idea. But it is time for a new leader who will take it from here.
So it is with heartfelt thanks to FFL’s Board of Directors, donors, volunteers, interns, and staff, that I announce I will be stepping down at the end of this spring semester and focus on our archives for a short while.
I will deeply miss the staff and volunteers who do the hard work that too frequently I get credit for; the students who inspire me—especially our interns; the women and men whose personal experiences inform our work; the Board who selflessly oversee FFL; and the donors who sacrifice to fuel our efforts.
To ensure a smooth transition, the Board’s search for a new executive director starts immediately.
To the successful candidate, I look forward to working with you to ensure a smooth transition and watch you build on our accomplishments by addressing the next set of challenges.
I look forward to a next bright chapter as we get closer to systematically eliminating the reasons that drive women to abortion, primarily a lack of resources and support.
Because women deserve better and every child deserves life and love,
Serrin M. Foster
President
P.S. Please help us on our search by considering this opportunity by clicking the link below and forwarding it to others for their consideration:
P.P.S. To learn more about FFL’s impact, read here.