COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — For tens of millions of Americans who see abortion as wrong, it’s gone this way for a half-century: One woman swayed to reconsider as dozens of others follow through. One clinic’s doors closed only to see desperate patients go elsewhere. One law passed, another overturned.
A movement built of tiny steps and endless setbacks, though, now seems poised for a massive leap, with the Supreme Court weighing undoing the constitutional right to abortion found in Roe v. Wade.
“Folks are more hopeful now than we have ever been,” says Mark Baumgartner, the 53-year-old founder of A Moment of Hope, an anti-abortion organization whose workers and volunteers stand outside the Planned Parenthood clinic here every minute it’s open.