Why do interest groups take certain actions in policy debates and not others? How do groups seeking to protect the status quo of policy act? These questions, and others, cannot be answered well by the current interest group literature, and this dissertation seeks to delve into this line of research with a case study of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL). While certain aspects of the interest group literature, and a large part of the venue shopping literature specifically, can help scholars understand some actions of groups like NARAL, there are a whole host of actions NARAL took that the literature misses and cannot understand or see due to common methodological and source choices. This work demonstrates that not all interest groups seek policy change, as assumed by large sections of the interest group literature, and that those seeking to protect the status quo (playing defense) often take non-conventional actions and act behind the scenes to impact public policy.