How Did Evangelicals and Republicans Come to Want to Ban Abortion?
They didn’t always, and their pro-life alliance includes some tension
Alabama, Georgia, and Missouri are currently passing restrictive abortion laws with the clear aim of forcing the Supreme Court to rule again on the constitutionality of Roe v. Wade. The conservative efforts to pass these laws and to nominate conservative judges is part of a grand bargain between religious, often evangelical, pro-life voters and political conservatism. It’s an alliance that helped propel Donald Trump to the presidency.
Critics of these laws, and of the anti-abortion movement in general, often charge that Republicans aren’t pro-life but rather pro-birth. Where, they ask, is the support for pregnant mothers? For children and families?
In its early days, the pro-life movement opposed abortion, but also aimed to address what they saw as its economic causes. But abortion legalization led pro-lifers to embrace the American right even though limited-government types aren’t a natural ally.
