The records of Right to Life of Michigan document the administration and activities of the leading anti-abortion organization in Michigan. The records have been divided into the following Series: Administrative, Committees, Topical Files, Affiliate Organizations, and Correspondence and Press Relations.
Right to Life of Michigan, formed as Voice of the Unborn in 1972, is the leading anti-abortion organization in the state with approximately 115 local affiliate chapters and 110,000 members. It is a loosely organized group of local pro-life clubs that came together to oppose Proposal B, an abortion reform referendum in 1972 that would have legalized abortion in Michigan during the first twenty weeks of pregnancy. Proposal B was defeated by a large margin, but that issue became moot with the United States Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision of January 22, 1973, which made constitutional the right of a woman to terminate her pregnancy and at the same time struck down state anti-abortion statutes.
Following Roe v. Wade the pro-life movement in Michigan gained strength. The National Right to Life Committee convention, held in Detroit in June, 1973, attracted over 1,200 delegates. In 1974, Voice of the Unborn incorporated as Michigan Citizens for Life. The organization consisted of nine geographic regions, with headquarters in Grand Rapids. New local chapters appeared in nearly every region of the state, but the strongest support continued in the west.
Through media campaigns, meetings, information packages sent to schools, colleges, and the general public, newsletters, and a lobbyist in Lansing, Michigan Citizens for Life informed the public and legislature about pro-life views of abortion. Michigan Citizens for Life also pressed for a human life amendment to the Constitution of the United States. A representative of the organization sits on the National Right to Life Committee in Washington, DC to help coordinate national and state activities and to further the goals of the pro-life groups. The name of the organization was changed to Right to Life of Michigan in the late 1970s. In 1985, it began participation in a nationwide pro-life boycott of the Upjohn Company of Kalamazoo to protest that company's role in the research, development and manufacture of drugs used to induce abortion.
