The Pre-Roe Pro-Life Movement in Minnesota and New York

their goal of a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution, which would protect and
define human life at the moment of conception. With the rise of the Moral Majority and
New Right came increased pressure and publicity (and therefore, change) for the pro-life
movement. Roe and the long struggle that followed it represented a defeat that
discouraged some, but mobilized others. Marjory Mecklenburg, the woman who needed
convincing to subscribe to the movement in the first place, was one activist who became
arguably more motivated than any other. She eventually progressed farther than any
other MCCL founder and was appointed to a government position as the Deputy
Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs in Ronald Reagan’s administration.
Mecklenburg’s trajectory and those of many early anti-abortion actors show that pre- and
post-Roe histories do not tell a segmented story, but rather a continuous one. This thesis
challenges historiography’s periodization of the abortion movement and the larger rise of
modern conservatism, complicating how scholars think about anti-abortion actors, who
were not always conservatives themselves. Institutional structures, political arguments,
and individual people can all be traced out of Minnesota, which acts as a vital breeding
ground and a continual link throughout the abortion story explained here.
Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life (MCCL), founded in 1968, was one of the
first statewide anti-abortion groups, and became one of the nation’s most popular groups
at the time of the Supreme Court decision. MCCL took a forceful stand against abortion
before, immediately after, and ever since the historic ruling in January 1973. The unique
nature of Minnesota politics, the large membership of MCCL, and the seemingly
paradoxical existence of this group in a historically liberal state presents a grassroots
story that is hardly discussed and rarely understood. Indeed, the Minnesota pre-Roe story
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