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

that “[r]ather than banding together for support, [pro-life activists] responded by
attacking not only their opponents but also each other…threaten[ing] the very existence
of the ‘winning coalition’ and ma[king] their goal of consolidating right-to-life support in
the Congress appear all the more unattainable.” 58
While pro-life forces could no longer
rely on outside lobbyists working to convince Congressmen to pass pro-life amendments,
the cause instead turned to the few pro-life activists who had won positions on the inside.
“The abortion picture is grim,” Jan Wilkins, then President of ACCL, wrote in 1983, but
she saw potential in pro-life education and in the leaders within Reagan’s administration
for pro-life change. 59
While Marjory Mecklenburg and pro-life activists like her once
fought for the cause from the Hartles’ living room in Minneapolis, at the St. Paul capitol,
in front of Minnesota abortion clinics, in the Chicago O’Hare Airport, against Catholic
biases, in Washington, D.C. forming ACCL, and lobbying ever since, she would attain a
position that allowed her to advocate change within the government itself. Marjory
Mecklenburg was the grassroots activist who became a government insider.
Away From the Catholic Mold: Pro-Life Leaders Progress Within An
Established and National Organization Framework
A 1974 ACCL pamphlet distributed to pro-life leaders nationwide gave nearly
twenty pages of advice to unfounded and developing groups and activists. The pamphlet
58 Paige, 222.
59 Letter from Jan Wilkins to Rev. Leonard A. Hirman, 14 June 1983, ACCL Records, Box 14,
Folder: ACCL – Admin File: General Correspondence: 1983 (2), Gerald R. Ford Library.
85