In the United States, the anti-abortion movement, also called the pro-life movement or right-to-life movement, opposes induced abortion and advocates for the protection of fetuses. Advocates support legal prohibition or restriction on ethical, moral, or religious grounds, arguing that human life begins at conception and that the human zygote, embryo, or fetus is a person and therefore has a right to life. The anti-abortion movement includes a variety of organizations, with no single centralized decision-making body. There are diverse arguments and rationales for the anti-abortion stance. Some allow for some permissible abortions, including therapeutic abortions, in exceptional circumstances such as incest, rape, severe fetal defects, or when the woman's health is at risk.
Before the Supreme Court 1973 decisions in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, anti-abortion views predominated and found expression in state laws which prohibited or restricted abortions in a variety of ways. (See Abortion in the United States.) The anti-abortion movement became politically active and dedicated to the reversal of the Roe v. Wade decision, which had struck down most state laws restricting abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy. In the United States, the movement is associated with several Christian religious groups, especially the Catholic Church and Evangelical churches, and is frequently, but not exclusively, allied with the Republican Party. The movement is also supported by secular organizations (such as Secular Pro-Life) and non-mainstream anti-abortion feminists. The movement has campaigned to reverse Roe v. Wade and to promote legislative changes or constitutional amendments, such as the Human Life Amendment, that prohibit or at least broadly restrict abortion.
On the other side of the abortion debate in the United States is the abortion-rights movement (also called the pro-choice movement), which argues that pregnant women should have the right to choose whether to have an abortion.
In June 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, ending federal abortion rights and allowing individual states to set their own abortion laws.
History
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, a movement to liberalize abortion laws gained momentum due in part to the second-wave feminist movement and to a number of high-profile therapeutic abortion cases, such as that of Sherri Finkbine. In 1965, a Supreme Court decision in Griswold v. Connecticut set a precedent for an expansive right to privacy in the area of reproductive healthcare. In the late 1960s, in response to nationwide abortion-rights efforts, a number of organizations were formed to mobilize opinion against the legalization of abortion. Most of these were led by Catholic institutions and communities; most evangelical Christian groups did not see abortion as a clear-cut or priority issue at the time. The first major U.S. organization in the modern anti-abortion movement, the National Right to Life Committee, was formed out of the United States Catholic Conference in 1967.
The description "pro-life" was adopted by the right-to-life (anti-abortion) movement in the United States following the Supreme Court 1973 decision Roe v. Wade, which held that a woman may terminate her pregnancy prior to the viability of the fetus outside of the womb and may also terminate her pregnancy "subsequent to viability ... for the preservation of the life or health of the mother".Roe v. Wade (98–1856) 410 U.S. 113 (1973). Retrieved April 29, 2011. The term pro-life was adopted instead of anti-abortion to highlight their proponents' belief that abortion is the taking of a human life, rather than an issue concerning the restriction of women's reproductive rights, as the pro-choice movement would say. The first organized action was initiated by U.S. Catholic bishops who recommended in 1973 that the U.S. Constitution should be amended to ban abortion.
Roe v. Wade was considered a major setback by anti-abortion campaigners. The case and the overturning of most anti-abortion laws spurred the growth of a largely religious-based anti-abortion political and social movement, even as Americans were becoming, in the 1970s and 1980s, increasingly pro-choice. The first major anti-abortion success since Roe's case came in 1976 with the passing of the Hyde Amendment prohibiting the use of certain federal funds for abortions. In Harris v. McRae, anti-abortion advocates won a 1980 challenge to the Hyde Amendment. That same year, anti-abortion politicians gained control of the Republican Party's platform committee, adding anti-abortion planks to the Republican position, and calling for a Human Life Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, banning abortion. Four anti-abortion U.S. Presidents – Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump – have been elected.
Lisa Miller of The Washington Post wrote about the younger, more feminine face of the anti-abortion movement with the rise of leaders such as Lila Rose of Live Action, Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony List, Charmaine Yoest of Americans United for Life, Penny Nance of Concerned Women for America, and Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life, all "youngish Christian working mothers with children at home" who seek to combat the image of the anti-abortion movement as made up of "old white men" who cannot relate to the experience of pregnant women.
The anti-abortion movement has been successful in recent years in promoting new laws against abortion within the states. The Guttmacher Institute said eighty laws restricting abortion were passed in the first six months of 2011, "more than double the previous record of 34 abortion restrictions enacted in 2005—and more than triple the 23 enacted in 2010".
In 2019, six U.S. states (Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, and Ohio) enacted fetal heartbeat abortion bills. These heartbeat bills generally restrict abortion to the time period in pregnancy before a fetal heartbeat can be detected (which can be as early as six weeks of gestation or as late as twelve weeks). The bills faced legal challenges, with their supporters having stated they hoped the legislation would allow the United States Supreme Court to reconsider Roe v Wade. Other abortion-related laws passed in several US states during this time period, which were upheld by the judicial system, include laws requiring an ultrasound before an abortion and laws that mandate fetal burial or cremation after an abortion.
In June 2022, by its 6–3 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the Supreme Court upheld Mississippi's abortion law at issue in the case. In a 5–4 ruling, the court found there is no constitutional right to abortion and overruled Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, ending a constitutionally protected nationwide right to abortion and allowing states to make their own separate abortion laws.
Overview
The anti-abortion movement includes a variety of organizations, with no single centralized decision-making body. There are diverse arguments and rationales for the anti-abortion stance.
Many socially conservative organizations are involved in the anti-abortion movement. Some groups focus solely on promoting the anti-abortion cause, such as American Life League, the Susan B. Anthony List, National Right to Life Committee, Americans United for Life, and Live Action, among many others. Other groups support not only the anti-abortion cause but the broader family values cause, such as Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, American Family Association, and Concerned Women for America, among many others.
Abortion opponents generally believe that human life should be valued either from fertilization or implantation until natural death. The contemporary anti-abortion movement is typically, but not exclusively, influenced by conservative Christian beliefs and has influenced certain strains of bioethical utilitarianism. From that viewpoint, any action which destroys an embryo or fetus kills a person. Any deliberate destruction of human life is considered ethically or morally wrong and is not considered to be mitigated by any benefits to others, as such benefits are coming at the expense of the life of what they believe to be a person. In some cases, this belief extends to opposing abortion of fetuses that would almost certainly expire within a short time after birth, such as anencephalic fetuses.
Some abortion opponents also oppose certain forms of birth control, particularly hormonal contraception such as emergency contraception (ECPs), and copper IUDs which may prevent the implantation of a zygote. Because they believe that the term pregnancy should be defined so as to begin at fertilization, they refer to these contraceptives as abortifacients because they cause the fertilized egg to be flushed out during menses. The Catholic Church endorses this view. There are, however, anti-abortion physicians who concur with the view that hormonal contraception does not block implantation.
Attachment to an anti-abortion position is often but not exclusively connected to religious beliefs about the sanctity of life (see also culture of life). Exclusively secular-humanist positions against abortion tend to be a minority viewpoint among anti-abortion advocates; these groups say that their position is based on human rights and biology, rather than religion. Some holding the anti-abortion position also hold a complementarian view of gender roles, though there is also a self-described feminist element inside the movement.
Views in opposition to abortion
The variety in opinion on the issue of abortion is reflected in the diverse views of religious groups. For example, the Catholic Church considers all procured abortions morally evil,Catechism of the Catholic Church para.2271, "Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law: 'You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish'". Vatican website. Accessed February 5, 2011. while traditional Jewish teaching sanctions abortion if necessary to safeguard the life and well-being of the pregnant woman.
Christian groups
The only coordinated opposition to abortion in the United States during the late 1960s and early 1970s before the Roe v. Wade decision was from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and its Family Life Bureau. Mobilization of a wide-scale anti-abortion movement began immediately after 1973 with the creation of the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC).
Before 1980, the Southern Baptist Convention officially advocated for loosening of abortion restrictions. During the 1971 and 1974 Southern Baptist Conventions, Southern Baptists were called upon "to work for legislation that will allow the possibility of abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother". W. Barry Garrett wrote in the Baptist Press, "Religious liberty, human equality and justice are advanced by the [Roe v. Wade] Supreme Court abortion decision." By 1980, conservative Protestant leaders became vocal in their opposition to legalized abortion, and by the early 1990s Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition of America became a significant anti-abortion organization. In 2005, Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said that making abortion illegal is more important than any other issue.Baptist Press "Sparks fly in Land's appearance at black columnists' meeting"