Since Dobbs was handed down a veritable cottage industry in pro-abortion books has emerged, especially among academic presses, the intellectual gatekeepers concerning what’s considered important scholarship. I remember both Rutgers University Press and the University of California Press showcasing their pro-abortion inventories. One university press even offered a special sale on “choice” titles.

Many “historians” are busy writing one-sided histories of pro-life legislation, usually focused on the days before Roe v. Wade when state legislatures were the primary battlegrounds for pro-life policy. I say “one-sided” because while back in the 1960s there was an initial push to liberalize abortion laws—first through the American Law Institute (ALI) proposal, then through initiatives in California and, most importantly, New York—the pro-abortion side tends to leave out the years between 1970 and 1973. In their version of history, everybody was supporting the liberalization of abortion. They would have us believe that from ALI to Roe there was practically a straight line “bending towards justice,” which only those troglodyte prolifers, clinging to their rosaries and fetal models, resisted.

The truth, however, is that as people began grappling with pro-life arguments, they were turning away from abortion. The New York legislature repealed abortion liberalization: Abortion remained legal in the state only because of then-governor Nelson Rockefeller’s veto. New Jersey and Connecticut did not legalize abortion. Three months before Roe was decided, voters in North Dakota and Michigan—states where Catholics were in the minority—decisively rejected legal abortion.

I raise the issue of the history of abortion in the states because I fear that only one side of that story is being told. I also fear that telling the other side would be hard. Why? Because pro-lifers haven’t been vigilant in preserving primary source materials, which are the prerequisite to writing any kind of history.

Historians depend on having access to documents, records, memoirs. Pro-abortionists have kept theirs and have often been able to rely on friendly media to perpetuate their stories. Prolifers may have kept their stories but have found themselves marginalized by the media. Just think of how the annual March for Life has been a non-story in “papers of record” like the New York Times.

I remember years ago an appeal was made to people who might still have early issues of National Right to Life News—the national pro-life newspaper, born after Roe—to donate them so that complete archival sets could be established. That was “our” paper of record. Modern technology enables us today to electronically capture records of what is happening, but back in the 1960s and 1970s, those retrieval methods did not exist.  Pro-life efforts were (and are) often the work of volunteers, working on shoestring budgets with donated paper, mimeographs (if you’re under 40, look that up!), xeroxes, etc. Local and state right-to-life news was often recorded in newsletters, flyers, and handouts. Where is that stuff? *

I recently wrote an article about the “Committee of Ten Million,” a pro-life petition initiative undertaken in 1973 by a Glendale, California businessman who wanted to collect ten million signatures to present to Congress demanding a Human Life Amendment. His effort was initially predicated on expected support from the Roman Catholic Church using its network of parishes to amass those signatures, support that never came.

I mention the Committee of Ten Million because it was part of the early effort to resist Roe. Try Googling it. The Internet—repository of all information vital and arcane—is likely to report no hits. As if it never existed.

We must preserve the history of our work!

As a Polish American, I was privileged to know many people in the ’80s and early ’90s who had been fighters in World War II, either as part of the Polish Army abroad or the Polish Underground and/or the anti-Communist postwar resistance. I regaled in their stories but wasn’t smart enough then to ask for detailed accounts so I could write them down. Those people are dead, and they’ve taken their history with them.

Prolifers are at a similar juncture. I was a teenager when I got involved in right-to-life activities after the Roe decision was announced; I am in my mid-60s now. Adults who were involved back then, if not deceased, are in their 70s, and older. As the Moody Blues put it, “time waits for no one, my love.”

Right-to-lifers need to commit to preserving the history of our labors. So, what should we do? Three things:

• Find some professional library/archives to store them. It would be wonderful if the leading right-to-life groups in America—NRLC, Human Life Foundation, American Life League, Americans United for Life, Students for Life, etc.—all got together and approached one university library/archive to be the central repository of right-to-life materials and then got their members to donate records to be preserved by the professionals there. But even if that doesn’t happen, at least individual right-to-life groups should work with some local institution (e.g., a library or museum, especially a state or college library) to preserve their holdings. Obviously, one central repository would make research so much easier, but the more important thing is saving those records.
• Assemble those records. The organizations should donate original records, publications, newsletters, leaflets, flyers, etc. (or copies of these if originals are not available). But individual prolifers should also contribute by searching their own homes. How many right-to-life activists may have papers, flyers, newsletters, boxed somewhere in their basements or attics? Now is the time to ensure that these valuable research materials are saved. Let’s be honest: How much of our material culture is lost because kids, left to clean out their elderly or deceased parent’s “stuff,” simply throw out “old papers” that mean nothing to them—but do mean a lot to future historians?
• Write down or record your memories. Oral and written histories are invaluable sources. (I wrote about the Committee of Ten Million, out of fear nobody else would.) Find an archive that will appreciate your efforts. We know about the underground railroad through its major movers and shakers, but no doubt there were many others whose participation is lost to us. We are the civil rights movement of our time: Let’s not permit pro-abortionists to continue writing one-sided histories.

*J.P. McFadden, founder of the Human Life Review, also published “LifeLetter,” a hard-hitting pro-life newsletter that followed the political abortion fight on Capitol Hill. Bound volumes are now housed at the office of the Human Life Foundation.