Religion: The Anti-Abortion Campaign

They are a mixed bag, but a growing one. Conservative Roman Catholics teamed up with a sizable number of liberals. Also included: the Salvation Army and the Mormons, Greek Orthodoxy and Orthodox Jewry, hard-shell fundamentalists and a hard-nosed minority of liberal Protestant ethicists. They are only beginning to realize that they have a common cause: opposition to what they fear is a nationwide trend toward abortion-on-demand.

So far it has been an inchoate campaign, waged mainly by local ad hoc committees thrown together 1) to resist proposed state legislation liberalizing abortion laws, or 2) to fight back when a state court strikes down existing anti-abortion statutes. But there are signs that the campaign is gaining momentum, direction and some critical successes. Easily the most impressive victory to date has been won, at least for the moment, by the Illinois Right-to-Life Committee in a clash with the American Civil Liberties Union over the constitutionality of the Illinois abortion law.

Last year the A.C.L.U. challenged the constitutionality of the 1905 Illinois statute, which allows abortion only to preserve the mother's life. Then Dr. Bart Heffernan, a Roman Catholic obstetrician and head of the Right-to-Life group, entered the case on behalf of the state's unborn children. Heffernan's brief argued that overturning the law would deprive the unborn of life without due process. He noted that since the 18th century courts have recognized the fetus' right to inherit or to share a trust, and that modern developments in tort law have recognized suits for injury on behalf of the fetus. But a federal court overturned the Illinois law as "unconstitutionally vague" because it did not clearly specify what acts were violations. There was a brief surge of abortions in the state's hospitals. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, ruling on a request from Heffernan, issued a stay against the lower court's ruling last month, effectively preventing further abortions until the full Supreme Court hears the case.

Such Right-to-Life committees are springing up all over the U.S., as are many similar groups: Massachusetts has a Value-of-Life movement, Houston a fundamentalist group called the Solid Rock League of Women, California a Coalition for Life. Most of the organizations share similar methods: lobbying against liberalized abortion legislation and spreading anti-abortion publicity. Often there is picketing and a dramatic—to some, shocking—display. Last week when 400 abortion foes demonstrated outside a California Medical Association meeting in Anaheim, some carried bags of aborted fetuses. On another occasion, a Right-to-Life spokesman turned up at an abortion discussion in San Fernando, Calif., with a fetus in a bottle. Commented one member of the pro-abortion group: "If I had known props were in order, I would have brought a casket with a dead mother in it."

Other organizations focus on different kinds of action. In Washington and Atlanta, largely female groups calling themselves "Birthright" operate anti-abortion telephone hot lines, counseling troubled pregnant women and directing them to agencies offering special care. Chance of a Lifetime, also in Washington, distributes a bumper sticker: