As they gathered Tuesday for a national strategy session, antiabortion activists faced an unexpected revolt in their own ranks.
Some of the biggest groups in the movement, including Focus on the Family and National Right to Life, are under attack from fellow activists who accuse them of turning a godly cause into a money-grubbing industry.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday June 07, 2007 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 46 words Type of Material: Correction
Abortion: An article in Wednesday's Section A about a rift in the antiabortion movement stated that the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act contains no exceptions. There is an exception permitting the procedure if the woman's life is in danger, but not if her health is at risk.
Those groups have raised tens of millions of dollars and trumpeted victory after incremental victory in the 34 years since Roe vs. Wade legalized abortions. But about 1 in every 5 pregnancies in the U.S. still ends in abortion. Deeply frustrated, several small antiabortion groups have launched a campaign to force their movement back to an absolutist position: No more compromises, no more half-steps, just an all-out effort for an all-out ban.
They are making their position clear in full-page ads that will run in conservative publications over the next few months. They are urging donors to stop contributing to groups that focus on making it more difficult -- but not impossible -- for women to obtain abortions.
"The broader movement is claiming that we're saving lives, and we're not," said Brian Rohrbough, one of the dissident activists. "It can't get any worse than that."
Tension between the incremental and absolutist camps has existed in the antiabortion movement from the beginning. It's bursting into the open now in part because of the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act.
In April, the justices upheld a federal law banning a rare midterm procedure that involves partly delivering a live fetus then crushing its skull. The ruling was striking for several reasons. For the first time, the Supreme Court approved a restriction on abortion that contained no exceptions, not even for the health of the woman. And the justices adopted antiabortion rhetoric in key portions of the majority opinion.
However, the ruling also explicitly endorsed other methods of abortion; at one point, the justices explained that doctors could avoid prosecution by killing the fetus with a lethal injection in the womb before suctioning out its brain.
To Rohrbough, president of Colorado Right to Life, that decision was nothing short of evil -- an endorsement of murder. He was appalled that his fellow activists not only claimed the ruling as a victory, but also used it as a fundraising tool, appealing to donors for more money to keep the momentum going.
