Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement Before ‘Roe v. Wade’

History professor Williams (God’s Own Party) provides readers with a deeper understanding of the continuing debate about abortion in America in this thoughtful examination of the early pro-life movement, focusing on the period between 1937 and 1972. The sensitive nature of his subject matter is manifest from the outset, in a preface explaining that he feels that pro-life (as opposed to antiabortion) is the appropriate term for him to use as a historian because it is how activists in the movement described themselves. There’s a lot here that will surprise even those who stay current with the battle over reproductive rights. Williams documents how the pro-life movement began with a strong base of “Catholic Democrats who were committed to New Deal liberalism,” and who viewed protecting the unborn as consistent with the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. And it’s likely to be news to many that both Ronald Reagan and Ted Kennedy originally had very different positions on abortion than they are currently known to have had. Williams presents an accessible look at how the pro-life movement shifted strategies and affiliations with changing times and political currents, even if not all readers will agree with his conclusion that its main cause was “at its heart, a human rights campaign for the unborn.” (Jan.)