thssm.23.08.14
#11,005
Religion should not have any role in the abortion debate.
If religion played no role in the politics of trying to save every baby fetus in every unwanted pregnancy in America, a woman’s right to an abortion would have been upheld easily as consistent with English Common Law on abortion that was in place when the Constitution was written.
You could read nf.23.06.16
#9,245 along with the following excellent history if you are interested in how the presence and political might of white evangelical Christianity as a powerful voting block has driven a form of theocratic demand for absolute political uniformity of Republicans lawmakers in favor of passing anti-abortion laws for the entire nation according to God’s will that we be a Christian Nation once again as we were at the beginning.
Restricting abortion actually began with doctors
In the
early days of the country, laws reflected British common law, determined by quickening.
Ending pregnancy after quickening was a misdemeanor.
Abortions were accessible and largely without stigma at this time.
mid 1800s, some doctors, sought to separate themselves from the healers and midwives who were also performing abortions.
some in the profession pushed states to pass anti-abortion laws
These physicians, men backed by the
American Medical Association, argued that they had more knowledge on embryos and that the heightened medical knowledge was necessary to determine when life began.
THE claim of advanced knowledge was mostly used as a way to take away women's bodily autonomy.
Now, it was a doctor who could interpret their medical condition, rather than just relying on whether the pregnant individual could feel the fetus move.
By the early 1900s, every state had made abortion illegal, though there were exceptions made if the life of the pregnant person was at risk.
In these decades leading up to
Roe, abortion was for the most part illegal. Because of that, seeking abortions also became extremely dangerous, particularly for
low-income pregnant people and
people of color, especially Black women.
In 1930, abortion was listed as the official
cause of death for almost 2,700 women in the United States, though there were likely many more deaths that did not get recorded.
By the middle of the 1960s, some states like Colorado liberalized their abortion laws, and anti-abortion movements started to crop up on the state level. But it was still not nationally talked about, or even politicized, the way it started to become in the 1970s.
"All of a sudden, it moves from a movement in the states that are liberalizing to a nationwide movement,"
at this point, the anti-abortion movement strategically cast itself as a "rights campaign" and started to compare abortion to the Holocaust and the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision, which ruled that Black people in the U.S. did not have constitutional rights.
"With Roe, the movement is able to grasp on to a federal oppressor, as an entity that is... allowing genocide to be enacted," Holland said.
And then, the Republican Party gets involved
By the mid-1970s, the anti-abortion movement becomes far more partisan.
In 1976, the Republican Party added an anti-abortion stance in their party platform. And that's when they start to enlist more evangelicals into the anti-abortion movement, which was critical for the movement's expansion.
From the late 1990s into the early 2000s, socially conservative leaders like James Dobson start to become more critical of the Republican Party. For example, they didn't want Reagan to nominate
Sandra Day O'Connor to the Supreme Court because she wasn't in line with the movement, but Reagan nominated her anyway.
"In the late 90s, you have all these big socially conservative leaders who say: no more... We don't agree in a big tent party," Holland said
"You really see the power of the anti-abortion movement to not only be a part of a party, but to really remake a party. And demand political uniformity on this issue," she said.
Through the end of the 20th century and the decades since, there's been a concerted effort from Republicans to prioritize abortion restrictions in legislation and judicial appointees. Conservative organizations such as the
Federalist Society have heavily influenced who leaders like former President Trump nominate to the courts. Trump pledged to select nominees off a list provided by the group, which has in part led to the conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court today.
Former President Donald Trump galvizined support among conservative evangelicals by pledging to appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade, even though he had previously supported abortion rights.
OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images
Hope this helps
nf.23.09.15
#11,010