“A Movement in Disarray”: The Hatch/Helms Fight

Abstract

In Reagan’s first term, the triumph of the New Right and the new Republican majority in the Senate made it seem that the executive and legislative branches would provide fertile ground for the ultimate anti-abortion goal, a Human Life Amendment to the US Constitution. However, the pro-life movement was plunged into chaos in the early 1980s as two competing models emerged in the Senate. This chapter examines movement turmoil, charting the complicated religious, ideological, and strategic schisms which erupted and that were indicative of deeper divisions within the movement over the past and future of the cause. This struggle over the movement’s constitutional strategy also revealed the divisions within the Republican Party over economic and social conservatism. Neither measure was successful, and the constitutional strategy effectively came to an end in 1983. These experiences forced anti-abortionists to confront the question of compromise and just what they could expect from their allies in Washington, DC.