Letting the people decide: How the antiabortion referenda fared.(1985 referendums in three New England towns upheld the Supreme Court's decision on Roe vs. Wade)

On Election Day, 1985, voters in three New England towns--Bristol, Connecticut, and Dover and Derry, New Hampshire--were confronted by a question on the ballot that asked whether Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in the United States, should be overturned. Although the outcomes of the referenda would have had no legal effect, there was widespread agreement that they would have great symbolic importance. The Reverend Patrick J. Mahoney, sponsor of the Bristol initiative, said that a victory would be "another nail in the coffin of Roe v. Wade." (1) And a leader of the opposition in Bristol observed that losing "would send a clear message to the right-to-life groups to continue what they're doing." (2)

However, if antiabortion activists around the country hoped that the use of local referenda would become a promising new strategy for advancing their objectives, they must have been deeply disappointed by November's results. In each town, voters decisively rejected the proposition that Roe v. Wade be set aside. In Bristol, where almost 70 percent of the population are Catholic, (3) the initiative lost by a vote of 56 percent to 44 percent. The defeat was even greater in Dover and Derry (65 to 35 percent and 60 to 40 percent, respectively). Moreover, the chief proponent of the Dover referendum was soundly defeated in his bid for another term on the city council.

Prior to the vote, Mahoney raised the possibility that a nationwide referendum on abortion could be held in 1988. Despite the losses in the three New England cities, some antiabortion activists have vowed to put similar proposals on the ballot in other cities during the 1986 elections. Thus, we can probably expect to see more such referenda in the future. What follows is an analysis of the main factors that contributed to the defeat of the Connecticut and New Hampshire initiatives.

The Battle of Bristol

It is hard to imagine a more favorable setting for an antiabortion referendum than Bristol, a heavily Catholic manufacturing town with 58,000 residents of mainly Irish, Polish, Italian and French Canadian descent. The city also has active chapters of six right-to-life organizations. (*) Mahoney, a fundamentalist minister, had moved to Bristol from Pompano Beach, Florida, about four years earlier; after forming a right-to-life group called Celebrate Life and after establishing his New Covenant Church in 1983, Mahoney presented the Bristol City Council with five proposed ordinances for regulating abortion. Bristol's city attorney advised the council that it had no authority to regulate abortion, so the council refused to act on the proposals. However, Celebrate Life then sued the city council. The group finally dropped its suit in 1985 as a result of an informal agreement, and soon afterwards, the council members voted unanimously to place the following question on the November ballot: "Should the decision of t he Supreme Court regarding abortion be overturned?"

During the ensuing two-and-one-half-month campaign, Mahoney became the central figure in the referendum fight. By all accounts, he is a charismatic speaker and is effective with the press; he reportedly gave 75 interviews during the campaign. He also differs somewhat from the typical image of a right-to-life activist, both in his appearance and in his political positions. As a reporter for the Bristol Press observed, "Dressed in a blue blazer, khakis and Reeboks, he resembles a Yuppie who is about to bound off to the beach in a Saab turbo." (4)

Mahoney, who is 32, describes himself politically as a feminist and a liberal; to substantiate his claim, he points to his advocacy of a nuclear freeze, his opposition to capital punishment and his criticism of the Reagan administration's cuts in funding for poverty programs. (He also spent a night in a dumpster to dramatize the plight of the homeless.) Mahoney has criticized many standard tactics of the antiabortion movement, charging that "most of the movement has been horrible" and saying that he was not out to "incite people." (5) Catherine Blinder, campaign manager of the group that opposed the referendum, admits that Mahoney is "more digestible" and "charming" than most antiabortion activists, but "when he calls himself a feminist, that's a joke." (6) She notes that he opposed the Equal Rights Amendment and voted for President Reagan.