Two vocal and well-known anti-abortion groups are headed by men-the Pro-Life Action League led by Joseph Scheidler of Chicago and Operation Rescue headed by Randall Terry of Binghamton, N.Y. Due to their high visibility, these men have emerged as spokesmen for the anti-abortion movement, obscuring the roles played by many women who say they prefer to campaign against abortion using less-sensational approach.
”While most pro-life organizations are run by women, the ones you see so often (in the news) doing street theater and drama run by men,” says Jeannie W. French, 31, director of the National Women`s Coalition for Life, a network that supports efforts to make abortion legal. ”Strapping oneself to an abortion clinic sells papers.”
When she started the coalition, French had been running, for less than a year, Respect Life, an organization funded by Chicago`s Roman Catholic Archdiocese to help women in crisis pregnancies and to offer post-abortion counseling.
But French quit the Respect Life directorship last August, feeling burned out, she says. ”I felt like I was dreaming about this issue,” says French. Moreover, she says abortion-rights supporters would accuse her ”of being `one of those fanatic Christians.` I didn`t think that was healthy for the (anti-abortion) message.”
Before the archdiocese job, French worked as a health-care counsultant for the accounting firm of Ernst & Young. French has returned to consulting part-time for a firm she prefers not to identify.
The remainder of her time goes into running the coalition she formed last spring, linking 15 existing ”grass-roots” groups led by women opposed to abortion, with divergent philosophies, ranging from feminist to fundamentalist Christian. The coalition may be representative of women and groups that are focusing on behind-the-scenes actions to help pregnant women and to reduce the number of abortions.
Boasting 1.8 million members overall, groups in French`s coalition counsel women in crisis pregnancies and lobby for anti-abortion legislation.
One coalition member is Julie Makima, 28, of Springfield, Ill., founder of Fortress International, formed to help women who are victims of rape and incest who are having crisis pregnancies and to aid children born as a result of rape or incest. Makima argues against abortion by citing her own birth as testimony.Her mother had been raped. In front of church groups and talk-show audiences nationwide, Makima disclosed her mother`s subsequent choice to give her up for adoption. Makima and her birth mother, Lee Ezell of Newport Beach, Calif., often appear on these programs together, having reunited in 1985.
”We break people`s idea of what happens in sexual assault, pregnancy and what they think the outcome should be,” Makima says. ”It`s obvious to people that even though the tragedy of assault occurred, carrying me to term was the best decision.”
Makima has run Fortress International for four years from her basement. The one-time nursing student and mother of two works full-time running the 400-member organization. She does not draw a salary and has used portions of her husband`s income to fund Fortress International. In 1991 the budget was $8,000. Her husband contributed $5,000, or one-third of his income, before he was laid off in November from his job, she says.
”There are times when I do things and wonder, `Does anybody out there hear this?` ” Makima muses. ”But a year or two later I meet a woman who says her child was born because she saw me speak or read an article about me. That`s what really encourages me to go on.”
The prospect of making abortion illegal again drives Irene Estevez, president of the Professional Women`s Network, another coalition member, whose goal is to reduce the number of abortions in America. ”If we reduce them by 50 percent, we consider that successful,” says Estevez, who works as a controller for a firm in Wisconsin while pursuing an MBA at Northwestern University at night.
Estevez says the Professional Women`s Network has branches in eight U.S. cities and more than 1,000 members, 70 percent of whom work outside the home. Besides coordinating network events, Estevez lectures at universities and civic organizations.
Estevez, 33, says she once was a ”radical pro-abort.” Her conversion came slowly.
”It wasn`t `ah-ha,` like I woke up one morning and said, `This is wrong,”` recounted Estevez during an anti-abortion rally at a clinic. ”I gradually found out about life and the medical facts. It (the fetus) really is a separate human being-different circulation system, a heartbeat, eyelashes.” Despite her turnabout on abortion, Estevez maintains liberal stands on other issues, including homosexual rights, family leave and women`s rights.
”A woman has rights, as long as it doesn`t infringe upon the rights of a human being,” says Estevez, who also belongs to Feminists for Life, a Kansas City, Mo.-based group which opposes victimization of women and considers abortion a tool to legitimize sexual exploitation of women.
Before she joined the network in 1990, Estevez researched more established groups such as the Illinois and National Right to Life Committees, but did not connect with what she describes as older members who often fought abortion through their religious affiliations.
A few women also head more established anti-abortion groups. One is Wanda Franz, 49, president of the National Right to Life Committee in Washington, the nation`s largest political-action group opposing abortion.
When she began rallying against legalized abortion 20 years ago, Franz believed her efforts would be short-lived.
The committee now has more than 3,000 chapters nationwide, run by volunteers, two-thirds of whom are women, according to committee statistics.
Franz is unlike many of the anti-abortion women of her generation. She holds a doctorate in developmental psychology and teaches child development and parenting at West Virgina University in Morgantown. She has been involved with the national committee since 1974 and was elected president two years ago.
Her position is unpaid, though the group`s executive director, David O`Steen, is on salary, as is another woman prominent in the organization, Olivia Gans, who heads American Victims of Abortion, an outreach program for women who regret having had abortions.
Gans, 34, has worked in anti-abortion political groups for 11 years, holding positions such as the Monmouth County director of the New Jersey Right to Life Committee. Gans gained national attention as an activist in 1985 when she traveled to Washington to oppose a nationwide campaign organized by the National Abortion Rights Action League.
The campaign, called ”Millions of Voices: Silent No More,” encouraged American women who had abortions to tell their stories, according to Sara Pines, league spokeswoman. But Gans countered by expressing her own regrets about having an abortion, saying that ”the voices NARAL was raising did not reflect” those held by many women.
Five months later, the National Right to Life Committee began a program to reach out to women like Gans and hired her to run it.
Gans lobbies legislators and they in turn contact her for data. She lectures frequently and has spoken before the Canadian Parliament. This past fall, she met with anti-abortion groups in Russia and Lithuania.
While some anti-abortion women have little name recognition, that`s not the case for Gans, as well as former senior executive of Bendix Corp. and best-selling author Mary Cunningham Agee, 41.
In 1986, Agee founded the Nurturing Network, two years after a miscarriage. Agee wondered how women who had abortions felt, and interviewed 100 who were referred to her by abortion clinic workers and friends. She concluded that 90 percent said would have given birth if they could have lived in another community and had help with medical costs and accommodations.
So Agee decided to provide it. She sold a vacation home and funneled the resulting $300,000 through the Agee family`s Semper Charitable Foundation to open the not-for-profit Nurturing Network. The network, located in Boise, Idaho and supported by Semper and private donations.
The Nurturing Network operates as a referral service for working women and a college-counseling center for students with unplanned pregnancies, says Agee.
The network has affiliations with about 250 colleges and universities and 215 employers, she says. It arranges transfers to other schools or jobs, accommodations and health care for pregnant students and working women. With an annual operating budget of $400,000, it has served more than 3,800 pregnant women, Agee says.
Agee attributes her success to her corporate connections and her ability to sell her ideas to colleges. She markets the Nurturing Network as another choice than can be presented to women, routinely asking deans of students or school presidents ”If you are prepared to subsidize an abortion, are you prepared to subsidize a delivery?” Agee routinely asks deans of students or school presidents.
”Then they say, `We don`t have the money. That can cost up to $6,000.`
I go `Right, that`s why you need the Nurturing Network.` We are prepared to subsidize it,” said Agee, who majored in logic at Wellesley. ”Now, let`s talk choices.”
