30 years, 30 pro-life faces

JOHN ASHCROFT Long before he rose to U.S. Attorney General, Mr. Ashcroft, as attorney general of Missouri, argued his state's parental consent law all the way to the Supreme Court. He won a 5-4 decision in 1983. HAROLD O.J. BROWN A theologian and academic by training, in 1975 he co-founded the Christian Action Council, an anti-abortion group that pioneered the crisis pregnancy center movement. JUDIE BROWN President and co-founder of the American Life League, she has stayed the course in pro-life activity during all three of the Roe decades. GEORGE H.W. BUSH Though he may have been a little unenthusiastic, the first President Bush repeatedly vetoed bills from a hostile Congress that would have rolled back Reagan-era pro-life measures. GEORGE W. BUSH After eight years of unrelentingly bad news, the second President Bush cheered pro-lifers by signing a raft of pro-life executive orders his second day in office. ROBERT BORK Pro-aborts torpedoed the distinguished jurist's nomination to the Supreme Court, largely because his strict constructionist philosophy endangered the fuzzy logic of Roe vs. Wade. CHARLES CANADY The Florida congressman introduced his Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act in 1995. Eight years later, the bill is still at the center of a political firestorm. SANDRA CANO As Mary Doe, a young, homeless mother in the early 1970s, her attorneys turned her child custody request into Doe vs. Bolton, the landmark abortion case decided along with Roe. ROBERT CASEY The popular Pennsylvania governor, a Democrat, was famously blacklisted by national Democratic leaders for his pro-life views. He was the defendant in Planned Parenthood vs. Casey. GUY CONDON Committed to compassionate alternatives to abortion, the president of Care Net (formerly the Christian Action Council) died in an automobile accident in 2000. BOB DOLE In 1974, in the first major statewide contest after Roe vs. Wade, Mr. Dole defeated Rep. William Roy, a doctor who had performed abortions. NELLIE GRAY Fearing the first anniversary of Roe would pass without protest, she gathered grassroots leaders and organized the first March for Life. She hasn't missed a year since. ORRIN HATCH In 1981, the Utah senator introduced his amendment declaring that the U.S. Constitution secures no right to abortion. It was defeated in 1983 by a vote of 49-50. PATRICIA HEATON Much to the chagrin of her leftist colleagues, the Emmy-winning actress has taken an outspokenly pro-life stand in Hollywood. JESSE HELMS With New York Sen. James Buckley as a co-sponsor, the first-term senator from North Carolina introduced the first-ever Human Life Amendment in 1975. HENRY HYDE The first lawmaker to introduce successful pro-life legislation, Rep. Hyde sponsored a bill banning Medicaid funding of abortion as early as 1976. MILDRED JEFFERSON The first African-American woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School, she went on to become the first president of the National Right to Life Committee. JOHN PAUL II The Gospel of Life, the pope's 1995 manifesto, reemphasized that the full moral authority of the Roman Catholic Church is squarely behind the pro-life movement. JACK KEMP Over strong objections from the UN, the congressman sponsored a 1985 bill that denied U.S. foreign aid to any international organization that supported forced abortion. NORMA McCORVEY In 1995 the Jane Roe of Roe vs. Wade emerged-as a pro-lifer. Her testimony about the lies in her case spotlighted the desperation of pro-abortion forces. STEPHEN MOSHER Traveling in China in '79, Mr. Mosher discovered and publicized China's forced-abortion policy. His work resulted in the eventual passage of the landmark Kemp-Kasten Bill. MOTHER TERESA At the National Prayer Breakfast in 1995, she lectured President and Mrs. Clinton: "America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe vs. Wade has deformed a great nation...." BERNARD NATHANSON A co-founder of NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League), Dr. Nathanson later had a change of heart, publishing his seminal work, Aborting America, in 1979. RONALD REAGAN His executive orders banning public funding of abortions both at home and abroad saved lives for more than a decade, until they were overturned by Bill Clinton. RICK SANTORUM Principal sponsor of the Senate's partial-birth abortion ban, he refused to consider a late-term abortion when his own child was diagnosed with a fatal deformity. FRANCIS SCHAEFFER Through his friendship with Billy Graham and C. Everett Koop, the Reformed theologian/writer helped to popularize the pro-life cause beyond its Roman Catholic base. JOE SCHEIDLER As president of the Pro-Life Action League, Mr. Scheidler advocates abortion clinic protests that are nonviolent but hardly noncontroversial. JILL STANEK A Chicago nurse, she exposed the scandal of babies being left to die after unsuccessful abortions. Her efforts led to the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, enacted in 2002. RANDALL TERRY The oft-arrested, always-defiant pro-life activist founded Operation Rescue in 1986. His tactics provoked a federal overreaction, the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. JACK WILLKE Dr. Willke served 10 years as president of the National Right to Life Committee and then founded the International Right to Life Federation in 1989. c