The Fanatical Abortion Fight

The momentum now is with the opponents ur hero, Henry Hyde!" shouted the speaker last week at a rally in Cincinnati's Fountain Square. As the portly Republican Congressman from Illinois stepped to the rostrum, the crowd of 3,500 chanted: "Life! Life! Life!" Elderly women wearing white gloves held up red roses. Men lifted up small children. "We're here to remind America of its soul," declared the silver-haired Hyde. "Religious ideals have always guided our country." When he was done speaking, members of the audience began another cadenced cheer: "We're for life, and we couldn't be prouder. Get a little closer, and we'll yell a little louder!" Finally a defiant roar: "No compromise! No compromise!"

The issue was abortion, and the fight was supposed to have been settled in 1973 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a state may not prevent a woman from having an abortion during the first six months of pregnancy until the fetus is presumably capable of "meaningful life outside the mother's womb." But as the passionate cries in Fountain Square showed, the battle is far from over. The rally capped a convention in which the forces opposed to abortion spent most of four days planning strategy for next year's elections and state legislative sessions. In heaping praise on Hyde, they honored a politician who was responsible for one of their most important victories: a 1976 amendment that effectively cut off nearly all federal financing of abortions.

Not far away, on the edge of the Ohio River, some 2,000 men and women staged counterdemonstrations. They carried white carnations and sang: "Fighting for our women, we shall not be moved. Just like a tree that's planted by the water, we shall not be moved." They placed coat hangers at the motel doors of the pro-life supporters, with signs reading NO MORE COAT HANGER ABORTIONS. They even tacked a "proclamation of religious liberty" onto the pillar of St. Peter in Chains Cathedral to protest what they consider the Roman Catholic Church's attempts to coerce all Americans into following the church's teachings against abortion.

Across the country, the battle is turning increasingly political and is waged by men and women who offer no quarter. It is a fierce clash of fundamental beliefs in which name calling is considered as potent as reasoned argument. Thus the antiabortionists call themselves "pro-lifers" and denounce their opponents as "baby killers." Those who support a woman's right to abortion call themselves "prochoice" and deride the other side as "compulsory pregnancy people."

Although both sides are equally matched in rhetoric, the advantage on the field had been held for several years by the pro-choice forces, fighting mainly in the courts. Now the momentum has swung to the pro-life groups, and the struggle has shifted to the political arena. The pro-lifers operate on the premise that in a close election, a single-issue group's ability to arouse legions of morally and religiously inspired campaign workers and voters can provide a decisive edge at the polls. The beneficiaries are usually conservative candidates. Moreover, to increase their clout, the pro-lifers are forging a coalition with other conservative groups, including opponents of gun control, the Panama Canal treaties and the Equal Rights Amendment.

With considerable supporting evidence, the pro-lifers claim they made the difference last year in defeating pro-choice Democratic Senators Dick Clark of Iowa and Thomas Mclntyre of New Hampshire, as well as Democratic Senatorial Candidate Donald Fraser of Minnesota. This spring the pro-lifers helped defeat pro-choice candidates for vacant congressional seats in California and Iowa. Well aware of the publicity value of beating a big name, the movement's members are gunning in 1980 for, among others, Republican Congressman John Anderson of Illinois and Democratic Senator Frank Church of Idaho.

In state legislatures, the pro-lifers have won fight after fight. The legislatures of 15 states, including Indiana, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, have called for a constitutional amendment that would in effect prohibit abortion in the U.S. In Massachusetts last month, Democratic Governor Edward King signed a tough bill that bans virtually all publicly financed abortions. The Illinois legislature has repeatedly overridden Republican Governor James Thompson's vetoes of bills that would limit state funding for abortions. The courts have thrown out the legislation three times this year as unconstitutional. Complains Attorney Lois Lipton of the American Civil Liberties Union: "It's a Ping Pong match. Legislation, then court cases; legislation, then court cases."

The big mama of the antiabortion movement is the National Right to Life Committee, which sponsored last week's rally in Cincinnati. Organized six years ago, the N.R.L.C. claims more than 11 million members of 1,800 chapters across the country. The committee hopes to amass millions of dollars for next year's elections. It has been spurred into more forceful involvement in politics by competition from several activist groups that are at the front of the fight for a ban on abortions. Among them:

P: National Pro-Life Political Action Committee. Based in Chicago, this group is headed by Father Charles Fiore, 45, a Dominican priest with a reddish beard and a combative temperament that sometimes offends his superiors. When Father Fiore urged Catholics to stop contributing to any community fund drive benefiting organizations that aid abortions, John Cardinal Cody ordered him to stop preaching in the Chicago archdiocese. One reason: some of the same fund drives also support Catholic charities. Uncowed, Father Fiore asks: "What does it profit an archdiocese if it gains $3.7 million and suffers the loss of its own soul?"

P: Life Amendment Political Action Committee. Run in Washington by Paul Brown, 41, a soft-spoken former executive of the K mart Corporation, this group is best known to antiabortionists for its hit lists of pro-choice incumbents. Its record of victories is impressive, though its leaders often count among them politicians who were defeated for reasons other than their stands on abortion. Nevertheless, Brown's outfit has been effective as a link between Washington and activists at state and congressional levels who are fighting against abortion. Brown raised $95,000 last year for congressional campaigns and hopes to funnel $250,000 into campaigns next year. He sees the possibility of winning support from 41 Senators for an antiabortion amendment by 1981. Says he: "We would then launch a filibuster, and we would shut down the Government until we got the amendment."

P: Life Political Action Committee. Unlike Brown's group, this Washington-based organization is primarily an umbrella organization that coordinates the activities of about 30 antiabortion groups in the states. The committee was formed by Lee Edwards, 46, deputy publicity director for Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign in 1964, and Joe Barrett, 42, a former trucking executive who had been a political backer of John and Robert Kennedy. The committee works primarily to influence elections for state legislatures by organizing political action committees at local levels.

The zealousness of the pro-life groups stems in part from frustration. Despite their smashing legislative victories, the number of legal abortions in the U.S. has increased steadily, from 899,000 in 1974 to about 1.3 million in 1977. Further, a study by the U.S. Center for Disease Control in Atlanta shows that, despite the Hyde amendment, most low-income women are neither bearing unwanted children nor turning to kitchen-table abortionists. That is because 76% of the poor women seeking abortions live in the 15 populous states that have used state funds to make up for the lost federal money; many of the other 24% can get financial help from private groups or obtain abortions at low-cost clinics.

The pro-choice groups are well aware that they have lost ground to the more active antiabortionists. Admits Karen Mulhauser, executive director of the National Abortion Rights Action League: "After the Supreme Court decision, a lot of our groups on the state level folded up. Our people went on to ERA, environmental problems and the like. We relaxed, and the other side began to organize." Based in Washington, her group is spending about $1 million this year in a drive to raise funds, expand its field operations and enlarge membership beyond the present 65,000. It has distributed some 200,000 postcards bearing the message, "I'm pro-choice and I vote."

The league last month enlisted some 100 clergymen and -women of various faiths to apply pressure by lobbying members of Congress, hoping to blunt the religious side of the abortion issue, which has long been dominated by the Roman Catholic clergy. Said one rebellious Catholic priest, Father Joseph O'Rourke, who was among the pro-choice lobbyists in Washington: "The antiabortionists are antifree, antiwomen and anti-Christian."

Some 150 other pro-choice advocates joined the effort. They met vocal opposition from pro-lifers who were picketing Capitol Hill. Two women pushing baby strollers had a curt conversation. "This is a pro-life baby," said one. Replied the other: "This is a pro-choice baby."

The target of much of the lobbying was polite but unbudgeable Congressman Hyde. As members of the clergy clustered about him, Hyde said calmly: "I'm for everyone to follow the dictates of their conscience. But a constitutional right to want something doesn't mean the right to have the Government pay for it." As the debate warmed up, Hyde tossed out one of his favorite lines: "There are 1 million children who are thrown away like Kleenex because someone thinks that they are not as valuable as a snail darter." Hyde brushed aside all counterarguments. "Taking a human life with the taxpayers' money is abhorrent," he said, "and I intend to use the political process to stop it."

The visiting churchmen and -women walked away, frustrated and angry at their inability to make any headway with Hyde. "He's intractable," observed Patricia Gavett, national director of the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights. "But I think he turned our clergy on politically." The aroused ministers quickly discovered that the politics of abortion is a bruising business. Last week a more stringent version of the Hyde amendment easily passed the House. It would ban federal funds for all abortions except cases in which a woman's life is in danger. As in past years, the Senate is expected to add exceptions for cases of rape, incest or potentially severe damage to the mother's physical health and then pass the legislation handily.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.