Phyllis Schlafly speaking before Eagle Forum an organization she founded in 1972
Phyllis Schlafly was a wife, a mother, attorney, activist and author. She was born Phyllis Stewart in Saint Louis, Missouri in 1924. Her father was a machinist and mother a librarian. They struggled economically during The Great Depression, but found a way pay for their daughters education in Catholic school. Phyllis had one sister.
In 1944 she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Washington University in Saint Louis. The following year she received a Masters from Radcliffe Women's College in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
After college Phyllis Stewart went to work for the American Enterprise Institute think tank in Washington, D.C. and she campaigned for Claude Blackwell who was elected to Congress from Saint Louis in the Republican sweep of 1946. Congressman Blackwell would lose his seat to the Democrat whom he had defeated two years later. She would herself run for congress in 1970 but, lost to the incumbent Democrat.
In 1949 she married John Fred Schlafly Jr. a Saint Louis attorney who came from a wealthy family in the city. They were both strong Roman Catholics that saw the fight against Communism as a holy crusade. In their 44 year marriage, he died in 1993, they had six children.
In 1964 she penned her first book A Choice Not An Echo in which she made her case for the nomination and election of Arizona Republican Senator Barry Goldwater.
In 1972 Mrs. Schlafly founded Eagle Forum to fight the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in which ratification was well underway. 28 states having already ratified the ERA. Ten more states were needed and the ERA would have been a new amendment to the Constitution. The Equal Right Amendment (ERA) would bar any distinctions in law between men and women. Originally, it enjoyed wide bi-partisan support. It was Mrs. Schlafly's Eagle Forum that argued women could lose their advantages in court proceedings such as in child custody cases and that the ERA would mandate women register for the draft. The deadline for ratification was 1982. Due to Eagle Forum's efforts several states that had ratified the ERA un-ratified it making it impossible to reach the deadline for ratification in 1982.
While the Moral Majority appealed to conservative Protestants, Eagle Forum appealed to a broader constituency from Roman Catholics to Mormons as well as Protestants.
In 1978 Mrs. Schlafly received her law degree from Washington University.
In 2016 Mrs. Schlafly, then 92, endorsed Donald Trump for the Republican nomination. This caused a revolt among the board at Eagle Forum and she was ousted as head of the group she founded and lead for 44 years. She died at her home in September of that year. Candidate Donald Trump attended her funeral Mass.
Eagle Forum, like Rev. Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority, were grass roots organizations that focused on social issues and national defense. Both organizations were opposed to abortion and feminism as well as the gay movement. Both groups saw these social changes as a threat to western Christian civilization.
Her contribution to the Pro-Life cause was similar to that of Rev. Jerry Falwell in that both were culture warriors fighting on a variety of fronts including the Right to Life of the unborn. It was their combined efforts along with their supporters throughout the nation that captured (in the words of pro-abortion advocates) the Republican party making it a Pro-Life party.
President Ronald Wilson Reagan
"I've noticed that everyone who supports abortion has already been born."
- Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States from 1981 to 1989. His election in 1980 was the culmination of work by social conservatives who seized the Republican party and changed it from being a party of the well-to-do, of which in all honesty Ronald Reagan was a member, to the party of middle class conservative Americans. As President Mr. Reagan's contribution to the Right to Life movement was limited. He did appoint Justice William Rehnquist, the dissenter in the 1973 Roe. v. Wade decision as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 1986 and he appointed Antonin Scalia to the high court that same year. He also instituted in 1985 what is known as The Mexico City Policy (named for Mexico City after a United Nations Conference held there on population) which had been the policy of the federal government not to fund abortion related activities regarding foreign aid packages.
Symbolically, his presidency was enormous. He was the first openly Pro-Life president of the United States. He was also the first occupant of the Oval Office to call in to the March for Life rally held on the National Mall. He did not shy away from proclaiming the humanity of the unborn. He once said, "I've noticed that everyone who supports abortion has already been born." Because of his stance every Republican president who followed him would follow his Pro-Life position and in the long term that would prove decisive. President Reagan died in California, the state he once served as governor, in June of 2004. He was 93.
Dr. Alveda King
Dr. Alveda King was born in 1951 in a segregated Atlanta, Georgia. Her uncle was the civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Her father was a younger brother of Dr. King. According to Alveda, her mother wanted an abortion, but her mother's father convinced her not to have an abortion allowing Alveda to come into this world. Alveda's early life would not be without pain. In 1963 the family was living in Alabama and her father had taken a leadership position in the civil rights movement. For his association the family home was bombed. 1969 when she was 18 her father drowned in the family swimming pool under suspicious circumstances.
She went on to receive a Masters in business management from Central Michigan University and an Honorary Doctorate from Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire. Her actual doctorate comes from Aidan University in Jacksonville, Florida, a degree in applied theology.
In 1978 she was elected as a Democrat to represent part of Fulton, County in the Georgia state house. She served in that position through 1982. She would run for congress in 1984, but ran afoul of the black political establishment and was unsuccessful in her bid. That same year she supported Rev. Jesse Jackson's presidential campaign.
In the years to follow Dr. Alveda King had a change of heart becoming a Republican and in 2012 supporting fellow Georgian Herman Cain in his bid for the White House. In 2016 she supported Donald Trump.
She claims to have had two abortions before her own religious conversion in 1983. She has described abortion as "womb lynching" and accusing Planned Parenthood of profiting from "aborted black babies." Interesting to note, Planned Parenthood clinics always appear in the poorest of American communities and always in black communities. Today she is director of Civil Rights for the Unborn and the African American outreach for the Catholic group Priests for Life. In 1996 she even dared to criticize her aunt Coretta Scott King for her support of abortion.
Alveda King's life is a testimony for civil rights for minorities and the Right to Life of the unborn.
Norma McCorvey in a Pro-Life television commercial
In part one of my essay I mentioned that Dr. Bernard Nathanson was an important defector from the pro-abortion to Pro-Life cause. And then added that he was not the most important defector. She would be revealed in part two of this series. Norma McCorvey, known to the nation as Jane Roe in Roe v. Wade was the plaintiff in the 1969 Texas case against Dallas County District Attorney Henry Wade. It should be noted for the record that Henry Wade was a registered Democrat and was defending the Texas law prohibiting abortion in the state. Norma became pregnant with her third child and wanted an abortion. Abortion advocate attorneys Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee seized on McCorvey's situation to advance the abortion cause. This case could be litigated all the way to the United States Supreme Court in 1972 and the decision would be released on January 22, 1973.
She was born Norma Leah Nelson in September 1947 in Louisiana to a dysfunctional family. Her father left when she was 13. Her mother was a violent alcoholic. When she was just ten years old she robbed a cash register at a gas station and ran away from home winding up in Oklahoma City with another girl before she was returned home. She was declared a ward of the state and sent to at least two reform schools. She later had to live with a cousin who she alleges raped her. She met and married her husband Woody McCorvey in 1963 when she was 16. The couple eventually divorced. Like her mother Norma had a substance abuse problem with drinking including drugs. When Norma was pregnant with her third child, the one she wanted to abort, she wound up giving birth to her daughter because she could not legally obtain an abortion in Texas. Her situation was the subject of her case against the Dallas County District Attorney. Her third child was given up by McCorvey for adoption. Years later her daughter would reveal that she felt betrayed by her mother for not wanting her.
Norma McCorvey would publish her autobiography in 1994 titled I am Roe. She would meet a pastor Flip Benham who was the national director of Operation Rescue that was founded by Randall Terry. Norma apparently had a change of heart and decided to be baptized by this pastor in 1995. From that point on Norma McCorvey would publically regret her support of abortion. In 1998 she was baptized into the Catholic Church. One of the participants at her baptism was Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life. Father Pavone was recently removed by the Vatican for remarks he made to an abortion supporter.
Norma would participate in Pro-Life media ads as the Jane Roe in the 1973 Roe. v. Wade decision. She would publically renounce her support for abortion. Close to death in 2017 she allegedly made a death bed confession that she hadn't cared one way or another about abortion she merely wanted financial support from what ever side was willing to provide it.
Norma McCorvey life was that of a sketchy character. Was she telling the truth at the end? It doesn't matter for us, but it does matter for Norma's soul. When the poster lady for abortion publically jumped off the abortion poster that proved a moral victory for the Right to Life movement.
Norma McCorvey died of kidney failure in Texas in February 2017. She was 69.
Donald J. Trump the 45th President of the United States
On October 12, 2016 Holy Family Cathedral had their Wednesdays at the Cathedral night. This was a weekly event at the cathedral which is the seat of the Diocese of Tulsa and Eastern Oklahoma. The choice of Wednesday evening was probably a copy of Protestant churches that meet on Wednesday nights. Tulsa being the buckle of the Bible Belt.
This particular evening we met at The Garden of Peace which is a lot owned by the Diocese used by Pro-Life protestors because it was located directly across the street from Reproductive Services the abortion clinic in Tulsa. Several days prior The Washington Post revealed audio from Donald Trump from several years earlier bantering with Access Hollywood television show host Billy Bush about how he [Donald Trump] would grab women by their privates. At this point Donald Trump's presidential bid seemed over. Hillary Clinton was almost assured victory just three weeks away and the Right to Life movement was as far from repealing Roe as Nellie Gray was when she organized the first March for Life in her Washington townhouse in the autumn of 1973.
But then a miracle happened. She didn't win. Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey revealed on Halloween that he needed to investigate documents she had as Secretary of State which had been found on the laptop computer of her aide Huma Abedin's estranged husband former New York Congressman Anthony Weiner. Mr. Weiner was under investigation at the time for sending sexual materials to a minor. This proved very bad for Hillary whom voters already distrusted.
Donald Trump used to say, "Politicians are all talk and no action." As president he kept his promise to Pro-Life voters and appointed three judges to the Supreme Court. He accepted the recommendations provided him from the Washington based Federalist Society for posts on the federal bench. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky also deserves credit as he would not allow the filibuster rule in the senate when it came to presidential appointments to the judicial bench. The filibuster is a senate rule that allows one or more senators to talk for days on end suspending senate business and requiring 60 senators to cut off debate. He also would not allow Barack Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland to proceed in 2016 upon the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.
As president Donald Trump appointed Neil M. Gorsuch of Colorado in 2017 to succeed Antonin Scalia. Brett M. Kavanaugh of Washington D.C. in 2018 to replace Anthony Kennedy and Amy Coney Barrett of Indiana in 2020 to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg who had recently died. By 2021 the case of Thomas E. Dobbs (the Mississippi State Health Director) v. Jackson [Mississippi] Women's Health Organization came before the Supreme Court. In June of 2022 the high court announced in a 6 to 3 ruling that Roe v. Wade and the 1992 case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which I have not addressed in this article, were null and void!
Today, Reproductive Services in Tulsa is closed due to Oklahoma state law. Of course with the repeal of Roe the decision to allow or prohibit abortion is a matter taken up by the states.
The work of the Right to Life movement goes on but the tide has moved to their favor.
