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

she said this was not the “sorest disappointment.” 75 Pro-life advocates focused on
Congressional success and also looked toward the 1978 (“just two years away”) and 1980
elections for more victories for their cause. 76
By 1979, many publications reported “the national right-to-life movement has
emerged from obscurity to become a potent, controversial force in American politics with
an ambitious agenda for 1980 and the future.” 77
Pro-life activists set a goal of preventing
the re-election of six senators and six congressmen, a threat that once “would have been
dismissed as ludicrous,” yet was taken seriously after an estimated 70,000 activists
marched on the Capitol on the fifth anniversary of the decision on January 22, 1978; their
numbers represented the largest march on Washington since the Vietnam War. 78
Pro-life
activists filled over 3,000 chapters, mobilizing and representing 11 million voters; they
composed a clear threat for the 1978 and 1980 campaigns. 79
Additionally, 1978 saw
many losses for the Democratic Party. In Minnesota, for example, the Democratic-
Farmer-Labor Party, which had dominated the state’s politics for years, lost the
governorship and both U.S. Senate seats to Republicans; one DFL executive director
admitted to The New York Times that the pro-life movement is “an extremely effective
political organization.” 80
Prominent pro-choice activists realized the shift in sympathy
for the pro-life movement, admitting, “[h]ad we made more gains through the legislative
and referendum processes, and taken a little longer at it, the public would have moved
75 Ibid.
76 Ibid.
77 “Single-Issue Politics: The Emergence of the Right-To-Life Movement,” The Political Animal,
29 January 1979, Issue No. 283, ACCL Records, Box 35, Folder: ACCL Political File: Political – political
Newsletters 1979/1980, Gerald R. Ford Library.
78 John Herbers, “Right-to-life movement prepares for 1980 election,” Minnesota Star Tribune, 27
November 1978, 1A, ACCL Records, Box 35, Folder: ACCL Political File: Political – Political Strategy,
and “Single-Issue Politics,” The Political Animal.
79 Gelb and Palley, “Women and Interest Group Politics,” 379, quoted in Critchlow, 207.
80 Ibid.
63