The child of a wealthy religious Southern California land developer who lost his shirt in a series of bad deals, Carpenter-McMillan studied drama at U.S.C. before dropping out to put her husband through law school. He has since made a fortune as a plaintiff's attorney, leaving his wife free to pursue conservative causes. She launched her activist career in the late '70s as an opponent of abortion. Her gift for sound bite (RU-486 is "human insecticide") and spectacle (she arranged a memorial service for 16,000 aborted fetuses) quickly made her Southern California's most flamboyant pro-lifer. Her image was tarnished when she admitted that she had had an abortion when she was a college student, but she was not deterred for long. She made headlines by petitioning the Los Angeles district attorney to seek the death penalty against O.J. Simpson. More recently, she drafted California's draconian law (signed by Gov. Pete Wilson in September 1996) that mandates chemical castration for paroled child molesters. Carpenter-McMillan is now pushing a bill that would require child molesters to wear a single handcuff for the rest of their lives. Carpenter-McMillan has done TV commentaries for Los Angeles' ABC affiliate and writes columns for the Los Angeles Times.