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

nomination. Jefferson’s tactics were quite different from those that made MCCL and
ACCL activists successful in their own campaigns. The pro-life cause still could not be
pushed on a political, single-issue level. Although the issue was politicized, it was still
not the aggressively partisan issue Jefferson believed it to be. Jefferson also emphasized
her religious background in her NRLC years and in her run for Senator, unlike MCCL
and ACCL activists that maintained a non-religious approach for the duration of their
most vital years (as MCCL still remains non-partisan and non-religious today). While
Jefferson was a vital actor who progressed far to a Senatorial candidacy, her tactics were
not as effective as others,’ and her pro-life activism on a national scale ended with her
defeat.
Carolyn Gerster was Jefferson’s successor as NRLC president, and was known as
“one of the bright Protestant lights of regional right-to-life activity” in her Arizona home
during the early statewide debates of the 1960s and 70s. 76
She was an Episcopalian. 77 In
1971, she became the co-founder and first president of the Arizona Right to Life
Committee, a position she held until 1973. With Marjory Mecklenburg, she drafted the
original NRLC bylaws in 1973 and served on the national organization’s first executive
committee as a representative of Arizona. 78
Gerster served as the NRLC vice-president
from 1973-75 and president and chairman of the board from 1977-80. She was a
practicing physician and also served to promote a broader Christian label to the NRLC.
Historian Connie Paige writes that, with Gerster, the NRLC “finally developed enough
76 Gorney, 178.
77 “There’s something for everyone at this year’s state convention,” MCCL Newsletter, October
1977, page 1, MCCL Archives.
78 Ibid.
90