Meanwhile, a handful of courts were taking on a different aspect of the debate: whether abortion was a violation of human rights.
From 1939 to 1958, five state supreme courts and the U.S. District Court in D.C. handed down rulings that recognized fetal personhood. These rulings lined up with the convictions of theologically conservative Catholics, who believed that life begins at conception, and this group may very well have influenced the decisions. As Guttmacher wrote in 1963, “The Catholic Church is so well mobilized and makes up such a large percentage of the population that changing the law of any state in the Northeast of the U.S.A. is a virtual impossibility at least for the next several decades.”
But though these Catholics may have been theologically conservative, most of them were not what most Americans would consider politically conservative, either by midcentury or contemporary standards. “There were some political conservatives who participated in the early movement, but for the most part, the public rhetoric of the movement tended to be grounded in liberalism as seen through a mid-20th century Catholic lens,” Williams said. “It’s New Deal, Great Society liberalism.”
For most mid-century American Catholics, opposing abortion followed the same logic as supporting social programs for the poor and creating a living wage for workers. Catholic social teachings, outlined in documents such as the 19th-century encyclical Rerum novarum, argued that all life should be preserved, from conception until death, and that the state has an obligation to support this cause. “They believed in expanded pre-natal health insurance, and in insurance that would also provide benefits for women who gave birth to children with disabilities,” Williams said. They wanted a streamlined adoption process, aid for poor women, and federally funded childcare. Though Catholics wanted abortion outlawed, they also wanted the state to support poor women and families.
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The ’60s saw the first serious wave of abortion legalization proposals in state houses, starting with legislation in California. Catholic groups mobilized against these efforts with mixed success, repeatedly hitting a few major obstacles. For one thing, the “movement” wasn’t really a movement yet—abortion opponents didn’t refer to their beliefs as “right-to-life” or “pro-life” until Cardinal James McIntyre started the Right to Life League in 1966. After that, anti-abortion activists began getting more organized.
But because Catholics had led opposition efforts for so long, abortion had also become something of a “Catholic issue,” alienating potential Protestant allies—and voters. “African Americans were among the demographic group most likely to oppose abortion—in fact, opposition to abortion was higher among African American Protestants than it was even among white Catholics,” Williams writes. “But pro-life organizations had little connection to black institutions—particularly black churches—and they were far too Catholic and too white to appeal to most African American Protestants.”Catholic clergy quietly began starting state-level organizations, seeding the initial funding but stepping aside to let Protestant leaders take leadership roles. Many also de-emphasized their opposition to birth control. “They accepted as leaders in their movement mainline Christians who were advocates for contraception,” Williams said. And “they tried to provide resources for women who had gotten pregnant out of wedlock—they wanted to reduce the stigma.”
The first big losses for the pro-life movement happened in 1970. Hawaii, Alaska, and New York became the first states to legalize elective abortion, no longer requiring doctors to perform the procedure only when a woman’s life was in danger. Although Hawaii only let residents seek the procedure, New York did not establish the same requirement. “In the first fifteen months after New York legalized elective abortion, the state’s doctors performed 200,000 abortions,” Williams writes, “at least 60 percent of which were for nonresidents.”
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As more states debated liberalized abortion laws in the early ’70s, the pro-life movement finally found its momentum. Although they suffered a number of legislative defeats, there were also victories—in 1972, for example, right-to-life advocates successfully organized voters in Michigan and North Dakota against referendums to legalize abortion. Those involved in the movement were more diverse than ever, including anti-war pacifists, college students, and, crucially, many women. It seemed like maybe, just maybe, the push for abortion legalization could be stopped.https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/02/daniel-williams-defenders-unborn/435369/
