Political Action Versus Personal Action

Abstract

Scholarship commonly treats the state as social movements’ default target and venue, explaining pursuit of change through nongovernmental channels in terms of lack of political opportunity. This article presents the “pregnancy help” branch of the American pro-life movement as a potential counterexample, as its recent growth has coincided with a seeming expansion of opportunities for the pro-life movement’s political wing. Using quantitative and qualitative data, this article explores the role of political opportunity in the founding, growth, and sustenance of these service-oriented pro-life organizations. I find that political opportunity concerns mattered little to the origins of the pro-life movement’s pregnancy help branch, but that they contributed somewhat to the path of its development over time. I argue that some social movements’ pursuit of change through nongovernmental channels may better reflect participants’ ideas, personalities, life situations, and orientations toward problem solving more than strategic assessment of the political opportunity structure.