Abortion foes, accustomed to small wins, ready for a big one

COLUMBIA, S.C. — 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. “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. A majority of Americans backs abortion rights, and one of the clinic’s rainbow-vested workers, 45-year-old Allison Terracio, believes the anti-abortion group’s sidewalk coterie uses trickery, empty promises and manipulation in the guise of kindness to sway women from something they’ve already carefully thought through. “We’re here to be different.” When he started his organization in 2012, the first woman he approached changed her mind, giving birth to a little girl whose picture hangs beside his office desk. This day, once the woman that exited the clinic went to A Moment of Hope’s idling RV to talk with one of its counselors, she tells of a tough upbringing in foster care, an abusive partner who’s now out of the picture, the struggles of raising a 3-year-old, the problems with money, all the things that seemed impossible even before her period failed to arrive and morning sickness started sapping her will.