Anti-abortion History

The Anti-abortion movement has always been a mask for segregation.

 at the time Roe v. Wade was decided, in 1973, abortion was not a major issue for the American right, or even for evangelical Christians.

The shift was not spurred by abortion itself, but by desegregation. After the Supreme Court ordered schools in the South to desegregate, many white parents pulled their children from public schools and sent them to all-white private schools known as segregation academies. After further litigation by Black parents, the I.R.S. revoked those schools’ tax-exempt status, provoking widespread anger among white evangelical Christians and catalyzing their new role as a powerful conservative force in American politics.

Publicly opposing desegregation was not really socially acceptable or palatable to a broader coalition. But opposing abortion was. And abortion rights had followed a similar procedural path as Brown v. Board of Education and other civil rights cases, using impact litigation to win constitutional protections at the Supreme Court to override state laws. So criticizing Roe became a way to talk about “government overreach,” “states’ rights” and the need to “protect the family” without having to actively oppose civil rights or desegregation.

 just as Roe’s passage and ability to withstand opposition seemed to map out a path to abortion protection, its likely fall now highlights a potential weakness of judicial protection: It is inherently dependent on the makeup of the courts. And over time, that can change.

 around the world, a pattern has emerged: successful campaigns treat abortion as part of broader questions of national identity, and rest on sustained organizing by experienced activists.

Irish activists sought to frame the abortion issue as a matter of national and social identity. But this time, the dynamic was reversed: In Ireland, the most successful identity argument was made by the side arguing in favor of abortion rights, framing reproductive rights as part of Ireland’s European identity.

the key to the movement’s success may have been combining that appealing message with the organizing experience of more radical feminist groups. “What shocked me when I was doing research with activists there was that actually, the organizing node of the whole abortion rights ‘Repeal the 8th’ campaign came from anarcho-feminist movements, which were more rooted in environmental movements than the liberal women’s rights movement,” Dr. Berry said. “The bulk of the people who voted for it, of course, were not affiliated with the more leftist organizing nodes. But that was really the heart of the movement that made it happen.”