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¶ 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."
¶ 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."