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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:
¶ 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?"