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

increasing inflation, and the Iran hostage crisis, and in addition appealed to the Moral
Majority, the New Right, and to moral and social interests like pro-life. Additionally, by
the 1980s, the country and the media had made abortion a political issue. One paper said
of Mecklenburg, an MCCL founder and champion of pro-life activities, “a veteran of
abortion warfare in cold Minnesota where folks frequently warm themselves with fiery
liberalism, conservative Marjorie [sic] E. Mecklenburg has found the political climate in
Washington no more temperate.” 87 Once in office, Reagan continually gave lip service to
the pro-life movement, but would not always follow up with definitive action. In
addition, Reagan’s appointment of Sandra Day O’Connor, a prominent pro-choice
activist during the 1970s in Arizona, was seen as a “betrayal.” 88
To pro-life leader
Carolyn Gerster, who helped Mecklenburg and the early NRLC separatists organize
ACCL after the Roe decision, Reagan’s Supreme Court nomination was a further
“humiliation.” 89
According to Gerster, Reagan promised a pro-life appointment to the
Supreme Court in return for the movement’s support in his 1980 election campaign.
After the election and little pro-life action on Reagan’s part, he issued a statement in the
August 1981 issue of The National Right to Life News, asserting “I believe that most of
the talk about my appointment was stirred up principally by one person in Arizona, I have
done a great deal of checking on this and have found this person has something of a
state voted for Reagan in 1980 and 1984 in tune with the recent alignment of antiabortion forces
and the Republican party), the incumbent vice presidential candidate under Carter was Walter
Mondale, a native Minnesotan and US senator from 1964-1976. In 1984, he won on the
democratic ticket for president himself.
87 Sue Mullin, “The lady behind the ‘squeal rule,’” The Washington Times, 1B, 28 December,
1982, ACCL Records, Box 35, Folder: M. Mecklenburg Fed Positions, Gerald R. Ford Library.
88 Wallis, op. cit.; also McAteer interview, quoted in Paige, 223.
89 Paige, 224.
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