All in a Roe
by Phil Merrill
Today many political observers with nothing but good wishes for the prospect of equal rights for gay couples argue that the Supreme Court should eschew a sweeping ruling. They urge the court to knock down the defense of marriage act but dodge the question on Prop 8, leaving the state court decision in favor of gay marriage standing in California, but allowing the political fight to continue among the majority of states which have still not sanctioned same sex marriage.
This plea for judicial restraint is built on the notion that the cause of abortion rights might have gone better in the long run if the court had held back a while as it did with interracial marriage, finally overruling state bans in 1967 in Loving v Virginia when such bans were down to 6 states.
Looking back at the pro choice movement before Roe we see 20 states had passed abortion reform or repeal laws. Hawaii, Alaska, New York and Washington state had legalized abortion. However a recent study argues that the reform movement had run out of steam by 1973 and progress was not possible without Roe. My experience contradicts this study.
I was in law school in 1973, the Vice Chair of the Cumberland County Democratic Party and had been a delegate to the 1972 Maine Democratic Convention. In that year I was deeply involved in several legislative races. Some had primaries that would be held in less than a month after the convention. The platform fights in those years were epic. It is easy to say now that these fights are meaningless. They do in themselves change nothing, but when all the leaders of a party gather in one place and fight with great passion over an issue, the fight itself anoints the matter with some import.
In 1972 the Democratic Party was deeply divided between the old guard and the young turks. After hours of fighting over the Vietnam War, the convention turned to the abortion issue. The young turks who weren’t running for the legislature expected their peers to support a woman’s right to choose. The young turks who were running, desperately wanted to avoid offending a huge block of their constituency. The Maine Democratic Party in those days was a Catholic Party whose votes came from the cities of Biddeford, Portland, Lewiston, Waterville, Bangor and the Saint John Valley where the French, the Irish, Italians and the Polish provided well over half the Democratic vote. Nonetheless, over opposition from many senior party leaders, the delegates on the floor inserted these words into the party platform, “We favor the repeal of the law prohibiting elective abortion and replacement by legislation permitting elective abortions early in pregnancy under proper medical care. The government controls over personal reproductive decisions are inappropriate.”
The significance of this cannot be appreciated without understanding that In these pre Roe days, the Republican party tended to be more pro-abortion than the Democrats simply because few Catholics voted Republican, and many of the Protestant Evangelicals did not vote at all, as a matter of faith.
I was elected to the Maine Senate the year after Roe, and my seatmate, a Republican, had sought election for the sole purpose of advancing the cause of abortion. He believed access to abortion would result in fewer unwanted babies which would mean fewer people on welfare and in prison. This reasoning might seem cold to some, but it was certainly consistent with being a fiscal conservative with libertarian leanings.
When Roe was decided it took Democratic state politicians off that hook and shifted the issue to the federal government. In 1976, I was the campaign manager of Ed Muskie’s US Senate reelection campaign. Muskie was a Catholic whose position on abortion had evolved to the point that he was opposed by the Catholic Bishop. The campaign had scheduled a bean supper at a Catholic High School in Bangor and the church was threatening to embarrass the Senator at or before that event. I was sure that views of Muskie’s Republican opponent were as liberal as his on the abortion issue, but I had been struggling to get a reporter to ask him the abortion question before the Saturday dinner. Then the Monday before the event, I picked up the Portland paper and there was a headline announcing that Muskie’s opponent was in favor of taxpayer funded abortion clinics. Our problem was solved. Abortion was a non issue in the 1976 US Senate campaign just as it had been in all previous campaigns for national office. However, that was about to change.
Prior to Roe, even Ronald Reagan saw no milage for the Republicans in the right to life stance. As Governor of California, he signed pro abortion rights legislation into law during the pre-Roe period. But by 1980, the backlash to Roe was ripe and Republican Presidential Candidate Reagan was there for the harvest with a full throated appeal to take away a woman’s right to control her own body. The fight still goes on without resolution in sight.
In 1973, Roe v. Wade seemed like an appealing short cut around the heavy lifting it takes to bringing the majority of our fellow citizens along with any big change. But our post-Roe experience should caution us all to be careful what we wish for.
by Phil Merrill
Today many political observers with nothing but good wishes for the prospect of equal rights for gay couples argue that the Supreme Court should eschew a sweeping ruling. They urge the court to knock down the defense of marriage act but dodge the question on Prop 8, leaving the state court decision in favor of gay marriage standing in California, but allowing the political fight to continue among the majority of states which have still not sanctioned same sex marriage.
This plea for judicial restraint is built on the notion that the cause of abortion rights might have gone better in the long run if the court had held back a while as it did with interracial marriage, finally overruling state bans in 1967 in Loving v Virginia when such bans were down to 6 states.
Looking back at the pro choice movement before Roe we see 20 states had passed abortion reform or repeal laws. Hawaii, Alaska, New York and Washington state had legalized abortion. However a recent study argues that the reform movement had run out of steam by 1973 and progress was not possible without Roe. My experience contradicts this study.
I was in law school in 1973, the Vice Chair of the Cumberland County Democratic Party and had been a delegate to the 1972 Maine Democratic Convention. In that year I was deeply involved in several legislative races. Some had primaries that would be held in less than a month after the convention. The platform fights in those years were epic. It is easy to say now that these fights are meaningless. They do in themselves change nothing, but when all the leaders of a party gather in one place and fight with great passion over an issue, the fight itself anoints the matter with some import.
In 1972 the Democratic Party was deeply divided between the old guard and the young turks. After hours of fighting over the Vietnam War, the convention turned to the abortion issue. The young turks who weren’t running for the legislature expected their peers to support a woman’s right to choose. The young turks who were running, desperately wanted to avoid offending a huge block of their constituency. The Maine Democratic Party in those days was a Catholic Party whose votes came from the cities of Biddeford, Portland, Lewiston, Waterville, Bangor and the Saint John Valley where the French, the Irish, Italians and the Polish provided well over half the Democratic vote. Nonetheless, over opposition from many senior party leaders, the delegates on the floor inserted these words into the party platform, “We favor the repeal of the law prohibiting elective abortion and replacement by legislation permitting elective abortions early in pregnancy under proper medical care. The government controls over personal reproductive decisions are inappropriate.”
The significance of this cannot be appreciated without understanding that In these pre Roe days, the Republican party tended to be more pro-abortion than the Democrats simply because few Catholics voted Republican, and many of the Protestant Evangelicals did not vote at all, as a matter of faith.
I was elected to the Maine Senate the year after Roe, and my seatmate, a Republican, had sought election for the sole purpose of advancing the cause of abortion. He believed access to abortion would result in fewer unwanted babies which would mean fewer people on welfare and in prison. This reasoning might seem cold to some, but it was certainly consistent with being a fiscal conservative with libertarian leanings.
When Roe was decided it took Democratic state politicians off that hook and shifted the issue to the federal government. In 1976, I was the campaign manager of Ed Muskie’s US Senate reelection campaign. Muskie was a Catholic whose position on abortion had evolved to the point that he was opposed by the Catholic Bishop. The campaign had scheduled a bean supper at a Catholic High School in Bangor and the church was threatening to embarrass the Senator at or before that event. I was sure that views of Muskie’s Republican opponent were as liberal as his on the abortion issue, but I had been struggling to get a reporter to ask him the abortion question before the Saturday dinner. Then the Monday before the event, I picked up the Portland paper and there was a headline announcing that Muskie’s opponent was in favor of taxpayer funded abortion clinics. Our problem was solved. Abortion was a non issue in the 1976 US Senate campaign just as it had been in all previous campaigns for national office. However, that was about to change.
Prior to Roe, even Ronald Reagan saw no milage for the Republicans in the right to life stance. As Governor of California, he signed pro abortion rights legislation into law during the pre-Roe period. But by 1980, the backlash to Roe was ripe and Republican Presidential Candidate Reagan was there for the harvest with a full throated appeal to take away a woman’s right to control her own body. The fight still goes on without resolution in sight.
In 1973, Roe v. Wade seemed like an appealing short cut around the heavy lifting it takes to bringing the majority of our fellow citizens along with any big change. But our post-Roe experience should caution us all to be careful what we wish for.