IMPERIAL — The nation's largest anti-abortion group is meeting near Pittsburgh and hopes November's elections will help their cause.

They're also hoping enough new lawmakers will get elected by 2013, and perhaps a new president, to repeal President Barack Obama's health care reform law, another issue the group is fighting.

The National Right to Life Committee's political director, Karen Cross, said November's elections will be telling because many races feature candidates polarized on the abortion issue. For example, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Pat Toomey is a staunch abortion foe, while his opponent is pro-abortion Democrat U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak.

"Every week as we have primaries it's almost like Christmas to me," Cross said, referring to conservative victories in many states. "The races are shaping up to be great ones for us in the fall."

"Top political analysts are moving races into 'toss up' categories each week."

Cross and other NRLC officials met with the media Thursday at the Pittsburgh International Airport hotel where the group's national convention runs through Saturday.

NLRC officials wouldn't detail election strategies, say how much they are spending to support candidates, or even project any gains they hope to make in the House and Senate.

Ted Miller, spokesman for the nation's leading opposition group, NARAL Pro-Choice America, promised a fight.

"We expect anti-choice groups and politicians to continue to attack women's freedom and privacy in the legislative process and at the voting booth, and we will not let those attacks go unanswered," Miller said.

Pro-Choice America also is fighting state laws that limit abortions in private insurance markets, an anti-abortion tactic that has gained momentum since the federal health care reform bill was passed, Miller said.

NLRC's state legislation director, Mary Spaulding Balch, specifically addressed a potentially landmark Nebraska law set to take effect in October that bans abortions after 20 weeks gestation, except to save the life or "major bodily function" of the mother, or the life of another unborn child.