Americans United for Life

Similarly, to the NRLC the Americans United for Life (AUL) was one of the first antiabortion organizations. Besides their originality, the groups were very different. The AUL was not a grassroots organization but one that cultivated a membership of professionals. Founded in 1971, the AUL aimed to educate the American populous on why abortion was wrong. Whereas many antiabortion organizations featured aborted fetuses in their literature, the AUL focused on legal, philosophical and scientific reasons abortion was wrong. The early AUL worked on providing pro-life organizations with reliable material and reliable arguments. The AUL distributed a quarterly newsletter and had an information retrieval service available upon request.[5]

Acting as the intelligentsia of the pro-life movement brought the AUL into some prominent positions; Several of its board members submitted legal briefs to the Supreme Court when it was hearing arguments in Roe v Wade. This began a transformation in the organization, from focusing on education to legal defence work. Following Roe, the AUL would go onto submit legal briefs in every abortion-related Supreme Court case.[6] In 1975, Dennis Horan a prominent Chicago attorney became the new Chairman and established an official legal defence fund.[7]

         The AUL’s first major case came in 1976 with Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v Danforth. The Missouri legislature had passed a law that before getting an abortion a woman would have to sign a form giving informed consent if they were married or underage spousal or parental consent were also needed. The AUL’s argument ultimately became the one which convinced the courts, that needing consent could protect women’s health, and that Roe allowed for such restrictions. A year later the AUL re-used this reasoning in the supreme court case Poelker v Doe. The City of St. Louis passed a law that prevented publicly funded hospitals from performing abortions. The AUL brief was again influential in the court's decision, they argued that “If the abortion decision is so private . . . it follows that the government shall not itself be compelled to respond to the demand of the exercise of that right.”[8] If a woman could not afford an abortion or required the services of a public hospital, the State had no constitutional obligation to help her.

This was a celebrated victory in the pro-life movement, contributing to the growth of the AUL and incrementalism as a tactic. More importantly, this case laid the groundwork for the Hyde Amendment's succession.