Marjorie Dannenfelser, 56, is president of the Susan B. Anthony List, which works to end abortion by electing antiabortion leaders. She was national co-chair of Pro-Life Voices for Trump and is the author of “Life Is Winning: Inside the Fight for Unborn Children and Their Mothers.” She lives in Arlington, Va.

You were involved in starting the Susan B. Anthony List in [1992] and have turned it into a major political force.

I’d begun to really see the real damage of not having women speaking out on this issue. And I knew that there were large percentages of women that shared my view as a convert to [the pro-life movement], who were not politically engaged. And that’s why it grew.

You had been a pro-choice Republican leader on campus at Duke University — what experiences shifted that for you?

Well, the first is that I thought I was pregnant. I had a boyfriend in high school that was really pro-life. And I just thought it was annoying, you know? My boyfriend, others that were pro-life, I thought their arguments were not compelling at all. So I didn’t even think about the issue very deeply, to be perfectly honest. I thought, Mm, I’m definitely not one of them. Right? And that’s a real thing, you know, the tribe you want to be in, especially when you’re that age, just figuring out your identity and all that. Well, I was not in that tribe. So I was at the first day of freshman orientation at Duke, still not knowing whether I was pregnant or not. I had my mom and dad with me and — back when they had phone booths — I called to find out. I mean, it was a miracle that I wasn’t [pregnant] because all signs pointed to it. But I wasn’t. And we already knew what I was going to do. Had the plan.