The United States abortion-rights movement is a sociopolitical movement in the United States supporting the view that a woman should have the legal right to an elective abortion, meaning the right to terminate her pregnancy, and is part of a broader global abortion-rights movement. The movement consists of a variety of organizations, with no single centralized decision-making body.
Democrats for Life of America (DFLA) is a 501(c)(4) American political advocacy nonprofit organization that seeks to elect anti-abortion Democrats and to encourage the Democratic Party to oppose euthanasia, capital punishment, and abortion. DFLA's position on abortion is in opposition to the current platform of the Democratic Party, which generally supports abortion rights.
The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) is the oldest and largest national anti-abortion organization in the United States with affiliates in all 50 states and more than 3,000 local chapters nationwide.
A crisis pregnancy center (CPC), sometimes called a pregnancy resource center (PRC) or a pro-life pregnancy center, is a type of nonprofit organization established by anti-abortion groups primarily to persuade pregnant women against having an abortion. In the United States, CPCs that qualify as medical clinics may also provide pregnancy testing, sonograms, and other services, while many others operate without medical licensing under varying degrees of regulation. CPCs have frequently been found to disseminate false medical information about the supposed physical and mental health risks of abortion, and sometimes promulgate misinformation about the effectiveness of condoms and prevention of sexually transmitted infections. CPCs are sometimes referred to as fake abortion clinics by scholars, the media, and supporters of abortion rights, due to deceptive advertising practices that obscure the anti-abortion agenda of CPCs from potential patients seeking abortions.
The United States anti-abortion movement contains elements opposing induced abortion on both moral and religious grounds and supports its legal prohibition or restriction. Advocates generally argue that human life begins at conception and that the human zygote, embryo or fetus is a person and therefore has a right to life. The anti-abortion movement includes a variety of organizations, with no single centralized decision-making body. There are diverse arguments and rationales for the anti-abortion stance. Some anti-abortion activists allow for some permissible abortions, including therapeutic abortions, in exceptional circumstances such as incest, rape, severe fetal defects, or when the woman's health is at risk.
Eagle Forum is a conservative interest group in the United States founded by Phyllis Schlafly in 1972 and is the parent organization that also includes the Eagle Forum Education and Legal Defense Fund and the Eagle Forum PAC. The Eagle Forum has been primarily focused on social issues; it describes itself as pro-family and reports membership of 80,000. Critics have described it as socially conservative and anti-feminist.
Jason Jones is an American film producer and human rights activist.
The National Organization for Women (NOW) is an American feminist organization. Founded in 1966, it is legally a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. The organization consists of 550 chapters in all 50 U.S. states and in Washington, D.C. It is the largest feminist organization in the United States with around 500,000 members. NOW is regarded as one of the main liberal feminist organizations in the US, and primarily lobbies for gender equality within the existing political system. NOW campaigns for constitutional equality, economic justice, reproductive rights, LGBTQIA+ rights and racial justice, and against violence against women.
Americans United for Life (AUL) is an American anti-abortion law firm and advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1971, the group opposes abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, embryonic stem cell research, and certain contraceptive methods. The organization has led campaigns and been involved in judicial actions to prevent the passage and implementation of legislation that permits abortion, or may increase prevalence of abortion, including successfully defending the Hyde Amendment in the U.S. Supreme Court.
St. John's Catholic Newman Center is the largest Newman Center in the United States. It is located on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Consisting of St. John's Catholic Chapel, Newman Hall, and a variety of student-focused ministry programs, the center resides within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Peoria.
Suzanne Elder is a Chicago community activist and public health leader who has worked on school, health care, and community issues. Elder is also noted for her candidacy in the 2008 Democratic primary where she challenged the party's practice of preselection in lieu of election.
Christianity and abortion have a long and complex history, and there are a variety of positions taken by contemporary Christian denominations on the topic. Although the Bible does not contain any explicit judgment on abortion, there are several biblical passages that have been interpreted as indicating either moral approval or disapproval of abortion. While some writers say that early Christians held different beliefs at different times about abortion, others say that they condemned abortion at any point of pregnancy as a grave sin, a condemnation that they maintained even when some early Christians did not view as homicide the elimination of a fetus not yet "formed" and animated by a human soul. Some authors, such as ethicist Benjamin Wiker, have contrasted the prohibition of abortion in later Christian societies with the availability of abortion that was present in earlier Roman society, arguing that this reflects a wider condemnation of pagan practices.
40 Days for Life is an international organization that campaigns against abortion in more than 60 nations worldwide. It was originally started in 2004 by members of the Brazos Valley Coalition for Life in Texas. The name refers to a repeated pattern of events lasting for 40 days in the Bible, such as Noah’s Ark, Moses’s 40 days on Mount Sinai, and Jesus’s 40 days in the desert.
In United States politics, the Freedom of Choice Act was a bill which sought to codify into law for women a "fundamental right to choose to bear a child; terminate a pregnancy prior to fetal viability; or terminate a pregnancy after viability when necessary to protect her life or her health". It sought to prohibit a federal, state, or local governmental entity from denying or interfering with a woman's right to exercise such choices; or discriminating against the exercise of those rights in the regulation or provision of benefits, facilities, services, or information. Provides that such prohibition shall apply retroactively. It also authorizes an individual aggrieved by a violation of this Act to obtain appropriate relief, including relief against a governmental entity, in a civil action".
CatholicVote.org is a conservative, non-profit political advocacy group based in the United States. While the organization acknowledges the authority of the Magisterium, it is independent of the Catholic Church.
Abby Johnson is an American anti-abortion activist who previously worked at Planned Parenthood as a clinic director, but resigned in October 2009. She states that she resigned after watching an abortion on ultrasound. The veracity of her account and the details and motivation for her conversion have been challenged by investigative reporters, as medical records contradict some of her claims.
The Catholic Church and abortion in the United States deals with the views and activities of the Catholic Church in the United States in relation to the abortion debate. The Catholic Church opposes abortion and has campaigned against abortion in the United States, both saying that it is immoral and making statements and taking actions in opposition to its classification as legal.
Abortion in Illinois is legal. Laws about abortion dated to the early 1800s in Illinois; the first criminal penalties related to abortion were imposed in 1827, and abortion itself became illegal in 1867. As hospitals set up barriers in the 1950s, the number of therapeutic abortions declined. Following Roe v. Wade in 1973, Illinois passed a number of restrictions on abortion, many of which have subsequently been repealed. Illinois updated its existing abortion laws in June 2019. The state has seen a decline in the number of abortion clinics over the years, going from 58 in 1982 to 47 in 1992 to 24 in 2014.
Alissa Golob is a Canadian pro-life activist, and co-founder of RightNow, a political group that aids in electing pro-life candidates in local nomination elections.
