“In our nation, certainly, the rule has been that even the most unpopular court decisions are, in due course, accepted. (The great exception was Dred Scott.) The proximate reason why is, we’d say, that Americans have granted their judges moral as well as legal suasion: what is legal is, somehow, right. Certainly there are those who argue that in our times Justice is no longer considered to be in the nature of things, but rather what the law says it is, so far have we fallen from that Judeo-Christian consensus that once permeated the mores of our Western civilization. Thus the unborn child has no God-given inalienable right to life unless a High Court recognizes it.

But we are not scholars. We are journalists who believe that the unborn deserve the positive Justice now denied them. And so we took thought as to how we might help restore such Justice.

The problem was indeed that the Court’s 1973 fiat was in fact a legislative one, usurping the powers of both the Congress and the several states to frame and pass the laws under which we must live. True, Roe v. Wade was only one in a still-growing series of such Court usurpations, but it is surely the most egregious, not only in its once-unthinkable result—more than 15 million unborn innocents slaughtered legally—but also in its effrontery: at one stroke, Roe overturned the anti-abortion laws of every state in the Union.

What was to be done? The question echoes the title of Lenin’s famous revolutionary gospel. And so did—a joke of history, surely—our answer. One day in early 1974, we were talking to the philosopher James Burnham, a valued friend and mentor, and a man whose insights into the ‘modern’ mentality remain unsurpassed in our experience. He said inter alia (conversations with Burnham were limited to everything) that Lenin in his struggle for power had always sided with the faction that had ‘the theoretical journal’—ideas would win the revolution.

Obvious truths can suddenly surprise: we were counter-revolutionaries: no nation aborts its own future unless it has lost faith in that future; the abortion plague grew out of the revolutionary collapse of confidence America (indeed, the Western world) suffered in the 1960s; it would not be reversed until, once again, we conceived our children in hope of a better future. Ideas can win counter-revolutions as well.

That, dear reader, was the genesis of this journal. We suffered no illusions: victory was surely impossible. But what cause is better than a lost one? And Who knows—history too can surprise. When in 1955 Wm. F. Buckley Jr. began publishing his now-famous National Review, social conservatives were a tiny, demoralised remnant. Thirty years later it is interesting to recall that Ronald Reagan was a charter subscriber.

There were additional inspirations. Good writing can win battles, great writing whole wars. In the Abortion War, who would command the best ‘vendors of words’? Our bet was: our side. What writer proud of his gift would befoul his reputation by supporting the killing of unborn babies, much less use his art to advocate it?. . .

And so we went to work. Naively: professional journalists we may have been, but we were amateurs in re abortion. Would we find the ‘good copy’ we needed? This fear caused a decision that, in retrospect, may well have been our best: we decided to run any piece—new, old, already printed elsewhere—we thought we ought to publish. So we cast our net wide and (O we of little faith!) were soon inundated with a huge catch of good stuff. Our problem was (and remains) to choose the best.

The first issue (Winter, 1975) duly appeared the following January. The lead article—proposing a Constitutional Amendment to reverse the Court— was by James L. Buckley, then senator from New York, who deserves a special place in our history: almost single-handedly, he began the determined anti-abortion battle in the U.S. Congress . . .

It is hard to explain what this, our 41st issue, means to us. Not surprisingly, we had originally wondered if there would be a second issue: as we say, there was no certain audience, nor any chance of ‘success’ in commercial terms. All would depend on whether that first issue gained us the support we needed to carry on what was, by any standard, a major publishing venture. It did.

Over the years, our review has not only grown greatly in readership but also, we’d say, in stature. And while we have never strayed from our original focus on the horror of abortion, we have extended our purview to matters related and—some might say—unrelated (but then what issue is unrelated to human life?). For instance, religion. From the beginning of the present controversy, the charge has been made that those who oppose abortion do so only for religious reasons. No, not only: any atheist might well admit that the unborn offspring of human beings are also human beings. But it is true that most religions— certainly the Judeo-Christian religions—teach the sanctity of human life. So it is not surprising that religious people, believing that the unborn are fellow humans, should be involved in the battle, as they were in the battle against slavery, which also reduced to the fundamental question: Who is human?”

—J.P. McFadden, Introduction, Winter 1985

“This issue begins our twenty-first year of publication. We certainly had no expectation of celebrating a 20th Anniversary when we began in that nowdistant January of 1975. Our intention then was simply to put out the best stuff we could find on the abortion controversy, which had only become a national issue with the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision; we hoped for reversal of the Court’s fiat, which seemed to us an untenable one that could not long stand. In the event, Roe has indeed remained standing, with only slight (and largely ineffectual) amendment, as precisely what it was 22 years ago—the world’s most ‘liberal’ abortion legislation, sanctioning the killing of preborn human beings throughout the full nine months of pregnancy.

The question naturally arises: Why go on publishing a journal that has so manifestly failed its original intent? We admit that there are times when we don’t have a very good answer to that nagging question—when all that seems to sustain our resolve is what the late Malcolm Muggeridge, that great journalistic warrior, told us in the early days: the only cause worth fighting is a lost cause. In fact, that wry paradox is not dismaying but rather invigorating—you can’t lose a lost cause, whereas defeat can be turned into victory. Who actually believed that what Ronald Reagan aptly called ‘the Evil Empire’ would suddenly collapse under the weight of its own inhumane contradictions? We’d say only the present Pope, and perhaps Mr. Reagan himself (we note that, in 1983, he contributed an article to this journal—a rare thing for a sitting president to do).

But there were other reasons to persevere. For instance, it became early and painfully obvious that most anti-abortion journalism would be ephemeral: the ‘Major Media’ were and remain monolithically pro-abortion, providing us the opportunity to make a unique contribution—a ‘permanent record’ of the Abortion War, preserving the evidence that the battles have by no means been one-sided indeed, that the ‘vanquished’ have had all the best of the arguments!

Too bold a claim? We don’t think so.”

—J.P. McFadden, Introduction, Winter 1995

“This issue is the first of our 25th year of publishing. It is also the first issue of the Review launched without our Founder, Editor, and my father, James P. McFadden, who died October 17, 1998, after a long and courageous battle with cancer. We have made this a special commemorative issue, in honor of my father, whose conviction it was 25 years ago (only two years after the Roe v. Wade decision) that the anti-abortion movement needed an intellectual journal. Since its inception, the Human Life Review has been the only publication of its kind: a quarterly collection of serious and often scholarly articles arguing for the protection of human life. Originally conceived as primarily an anti-abortion magazine, the Review’s subject matter has expanded to include larger cultural questions, as well as, by unfortunate necessity, partial-birth abortion, infanticide, assisted suicide and euthanasia, and even human cloning and experimentation. It is now and will continue to be a valuable historical record of life issues in America and abroad.

As I sit to write this Introduction, my first, there is certainly sadness. I wish my father were here to write it, as always, pounding away at his Royal typewriter, passing each completed page of copy out for us to read, proof, and typeset. I do miss him, in ways I don’t have the words to describe. But I also have a great sense of gratitude and pride, and a welcome feeling of purpose: it’s up to those of us who are here to ensure that the important work of J.P.’s beloved Foundation and Review will continue, as we are sure it will, into the next century.

There is a lot about my father in this issue . . . It’s fitting, because he was a giant presence in the pro-life movement. But it’s appropriate for another reason as well: the life issues that we have argued about in these pages for so many years are not theoretical, nor divorced from our and our readers’ real lives. Many of our families are affected now by abortion and its ‘progeny,’ including post-abortion syndrome, pressure for pre-natal testing, ‘genetic counseling,’ fertility procedures, et al. And, on the other end of life, who can now escape ‘quality-of-life’ concerns? My own father’s illness caused him to live under conditions that have been used as an argument for euthanasia and assisted suicide. More and more doctors and medical plans are buying (literally) into a ‘quality-of-life’ ethic. None of us can afford to be ill-informed. And, as you read about my father’s struggle, it is evident that even champions of life can find it difficult to go on in the face of devastating suffering, which is why the conviction that human life is sacred must be deeply rooted. For in reality, trusting that life is God’s to give and take does not rule out the hard cases, but it can sanctify them.”

—Maria McFadden Maffucci, Introduction, Winter 1999 Human Life Review

“Things will never be the same without Faith [McFadden, who died August 30, 2011], but I do know she wouldn’t want us to be sad. She would want us all to enjoy this evening, especially the ‘happy few’ who make up our staff and who have worked so hard, despite the difficulties of these past months, to plan this event. I would like to thank Anne Conlon, our managing editor, Rose Flynn DeMaio, our business manager, our tireless volunteer, Pat O’Brien, our dinner journal volunteer, Jane Devanny, and our production manager, my sister Christina, who in the past two years has juggled working and raising twins. Said twins turned two yesterday, and are here tonight, along with my three children, the grandchildren my mother adored. And there are other young people here tonight, from grade schoolers up to graduate school, thanks to our many supporters who sponsored students to come to this event. You, young ones, are the future of the movement, and I hope that what you hear this night will stay with you, and that you will go out and continue to be great defenders of life as well.”

—Maria McFadden Maffucci, Great Defender of Life Dinner Transcript, Fall 2011 Human Life Review

“Welcome to the first issue of our 46th year! For just the second time in our history, we welcome a new editor. She is Anne Conlon, who has been our stalwart managing editor since she arrived in our offices in 1995, an escapee from the mad world of Madison Avenue advertising. Mrs. Conlon brings her sharp eye and deft pen to her new position . . .

Christina Angelopoulos is our new managing editor; in truth, she wears many hats and masterfully orchestrates our production as well. She is now joined by our new production assistant, Ida Paz.

As for your servant, my new position as editor in chief will allow me to broaden my reach and ensure the growth of the Human Life Foundation as a whole. As we strive to keep the Review consistently outstanding, we are also working to expand and enhance our dynamic website—www.humanlifereview.com; host live events, support pregnancy centers, and invite new readers and thinkers into our Foundation community . . .

What unites our various subjects is the conviction that human life is sacred and deserving of protection, in life and in law. Because the culture at large, which includes the mainstream medical and legal establishments as well as the media, refuses to state the truth about human life—when it begins, how it is valued, what happens to society when we devalue it—our Review is needed more than ever as the source of the finest scholarship, literature, and commentary on what is truly at stake in the battles for life.”

—Maria McFadden Maffucci, Winter 2020 Human Life Review

“On May 31, 1973, four months after the Supreme Court gave baby-killing its blessing, James Buckley introduced a Human Life Amendment in the Senate, warning that ‘Such a situation cannot continue indefinitely without doing irreparable damage to the most cherished principles of humanity and to the moral sensibilities of our people. The issue at stake is not only what we do to unborn children, but what we do to ourselves by permitting them to be killed.’ . . .

Now that the Court has returned the ‘authority to regulate abortion . . . to the people and their elected representatives,’ we will see if the damage is reparable. We know we are in for another long hard fight. One that many of us who lived to see Roe overturned won’t be around to finish. But we are here for its beginning . . . the Human Life Review will continue to be the place where the movement for life does its thinking, providing readers with thoughtful analysis and informed opinion as the campaign to move Americans away from careless abortion acceptance moves to state legislatures and closer to home. And we will continue to do what we’ve done since J.P. McFadden launched this much-needed journal in 1975: keep the record. Because as he said then, ‘No one should be able to say, whatever happens, that they didn’t know what’s actually going on here.’”

—Anne Conlon, Maria McFadden Maffucci, Summer 2022 Human Life Review