Reproducing Law: The Rescue Movement, Conscience, and the Rule of Law

In 1988, after the Siege of Atlanta, Operation Rescue inspired a larger movement determined to transform the relationship between conscience and the rule of law. Surveying debates that unfolded in the courts, the media, and the political arena, this paper explores how an idea of conscientious objection that at one point attracted pro-lifers across the ideological spectrum became a symbol of the extremism. Charting the rise and fall of the rescue movement, the paper reveals that contests about conscience addressed not only protection of individual beliefs from state interference but also the role of the courts in American democracy and the boundary between civil disobedience and lawlessness.

Starting with the origin of clinic protests in the 1970s, the paper unearths a rich and surprising debate within the rescue movement about the purpose, meaning, and permissible limits of law-breaking and conscience. The rescue movement—and public responses to it—emerge from this narrative as more diverse, fluid, and divided than earlier work often suggests.

When the idea of rescue lost influence, the movement itself had changed, reshaped by a rapidly changing political and legal landscape. Faced with steep civil and criminal penalties, fewer activists participated in rescues. As abortion opponents began making progress in the courts, the frustrations that had fueled rescues subsided. The idea of conscience embraced by those who remained alienated a majority inside and outside the antiabortion movement. By understanding how and why the movement’s idea of conscience changed, and by studying why certain concepts of conscience so quickly lost support, we gain new perspective on the promise and limitation of conscience-centered political strategies—tactics that play an increasingly influential role in contemporary reproductive politics.