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

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through books and articles set aside for him; many of the articles and publications found in this Mayo stack were the same ones found in the papers of Minnesota’s top pro- and anti-abortion activists. Various actors here were informed by the same (often medical) publications, yet were led to very different conclusions. 14 Blackmun was certainly influenced by the institution he knew so well; the Mayo Clinic has been the country’s forerunner in medical care, research, and teaching for over a century. 15 Patients and doctors travel from across the globe to visit Mayo; author Lucy Wilder describes the clinic’s average patient as “a cross-section of everyone in the world.” 16 The worldliness and significant presence of the medical profession in Minnesota helps explain the dominant usage of medical rhetoric in the abortion debate. These doctors made the medical advancements that spurred pro-abortion sympathizers to action, and these Mayo doctors and Mayo-affiliated University of Minnesota professors wrote articles and letters to establish the vocabulary for the debate. All this, taken together with the high abortion approval rate (3 out of every 4) of therapeutic abortions by clinic boards, created an atmosphere quite supportive of the Supreme Court decision Blackmun would write in 1973. 17 The Minnesota abortion debate had implications not only for the state’s own residents, but also clearly connected to a drastic and lasting impact on the national scale. This continuous Minnesota story is tightly knit into the nation’s medical, social, and even judicial history. 14 For example, Blackmun consulted the March 1971 American Journal for Public Health issue and a Washington Post article that asserted “2 out of 3 Americans think abortion should be a matter for decision solely between a woman and her physician.” Ibid., 90-91. I found both publications in the MCCL Historical Files and the Katherine Taylor Wood Papers. 15 Alan E. Nourse, Inside the Mayo Clinic, (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1979), 23; Lucy Wilder, The Mayo Clinic, (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1947), 26. 16 Wilder, 58. 17 “Doctors Estimate 3 of 4 Abortions Accepted at Mayo,” 19 May 1970, Minneapolis Star, Box 1, Folder: Newspaper Clippings 1967-1970, Governor Harold Levander Papers. 9
Well before Blackmun’s 1972 Mayo visit, Minnesota residents grappled with the abortion decision themselves. Anti-abortion MCCL came together as a direct response to community-driven pro-abortion rumblings in the Minnesota legislature in 1967. Spurred by pro-abortion activists, legislators proposed a bill to repeal the 1873 Minnesota statute that outlawed abortion. As previously mentioned, a group of concerned citizens, professors, and physicians rallied colleagues and neighbors, and met in March 1968 in the Hartle family living room to plan the action and the organization that would last for decades. 18 These actors and the tactics they employed in their earliest activist years affected the movement on a state and national scale before and after the 1973 Roe decision. MCCL and the National Right to Life Committee still exist today; this living room meeting set a movement in motion that continues to survive. The 1968 neighborhood gathering served as the first official meeting of MCCL, which proclaims itself to this day as a “non-profit, non-denominational public service organization dedicated to fostering, through education and social action projects, the right to life and the dignity of each human being.” 19 MCCL implemented its first actions – recruiting, distributing literature, and writing letters – by mimicking the pro-abortion groups established earlier in the decade. Minnesota Council for the Legal Termination of Pregnancy (MCLTP) was the most prominent of these groups and mobilized on a grassroots level, lobbied at the state capitol, and used broad rhetoric to build its strong support. MCCL formed and acted as a pushback on both the 1967 legislation and groups like MCLTP, but also implemented the same tactics and non-religious language to accomplish its goals. 18 Mary and Robert Joyce interview. 19 MCCL, History of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, (Minneapolis: 1995), 2. 10
Page 1 and 2: Abortion as a “Medical Problem Br
Page 3 and 4: Table of Contents Acknowledgements
Page 5 and 6: Abbreviations ACCL - American Citiz
Page 7 and 8: this first neighborhood grassroots
Page 9 and 10: in New York, California, and Colora
Page 11 and 12: is a unique and important one to te
Page 13: major factors led to MCCL’s victo
Page 17 and 18: Chapter 1: The Pre-History of the C
Page 19 and 20: practice. The law as it stands is t
Page 21 and 22: would have functioned independently
Page 23 and 24: instances also increased awareness
Page 25 and 26: threat of abortion criminalization
Page 27 and 28: the actions of new twentieth-centur
Page 29 and 30: of the MCLTP. 3 In the early 1970s,
Page 31 and 32: from the Great Depression in its se
Page 33 and 34: underestimated his opponents, as MC
Page 35 and 36: who shared a “communitarian ethic
Page 37 and 38: However, the Council did not offer
Page 39 and 40: issue-based and activist politics f
Page 41 and 42: Blake and Fred Mecklenburg and lobb
Page 43 and 44: yet united front against abortion l
Page 45 and 46: anti-abortion movement, but also be
Page 47 and 48: emerging organizations across the c
Page 49 and 50: the 1970s, and an additional thirte
Page 51 and 52: When news of Roe and Doe broke, MCC
Page 53 and 54: their efforts prior to the decision
Page 55 and 56: the part of state groups and create
Page 57 and 58: physical space in Minneapolis and r
Page 59 and 60: 58 of them were enacted. 37 Even fo
Page 61 and 62: looms as a menace to all mankind an
Page 63 and 64: War.” 56 President Gerald Ford di
Page 65 and 66:
the 1976 Republican Party Platform,
Page 67 and 68:
should be noted that pro-life activ
Page 69 and 70:
with us.” 81 Needless to say, by
Page 71 and 72:
ecord of being vindictive.” 90 Ca
Page 73 and 74:
decades of involvement. Yet before
Page 75 and 76:
nationwide effort organized by the
Page 77 and 78:
in drastic (at the extreme, irrecon
Page 79 and 80:
and increase political effectivenes
Page 81 and 82:
willing to be window dressing - no
Page 83 and 84:
Warren Schaller, and others to form
Page 85 and 86:
women, which would become the speci
Page 87 and 88:
On multiple levels, ACCL became a p
Page 89 and 90:
multi-issue approach was a tactic a
Page 91 and 92:
asserted, “often a few key people
Page 93 and 94:
Lampe, and others) split to form AC
Page 95 and 96:
nomination. Jefferson’s tactics w
Page 97 and 98:
administration. 82 Lampe took over
Page 99 and 100:
and was also a member of Planned Pa
Page 101 and 102:
As previously explored, Mecklenburg
Page 103 and 104:
million; Schweiker’s stance and a
Page 105 and 106:
Almost immediately after her appoin
Page 107 and 108:
The last straw came when Mecklenbur
Page 109 and 110:
on the national scene cautiously, m
Page 111 and 112:
abortion debate she encountered as
Page 113 and 114:
Conclusion Supreme Court Justice Ha
Page 115 and 116:
legislatures, and celebrated occasi
Page 117 and 118:
ecognized nationwide as “one of t
Page 119 and 120:
Bibliography Archives and Interview
Page 121 and 122:
Gorney, Cynthia. Articles of Faith.
Page 123:
Press, Eyal. Absolute Convictions:
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The Pre-Roe Pro-Life Movement in Minnesota and New York

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