The politics of abortion: a historical perspective.

Politics and Social Issues
1

I think our recent discussions regarding abortion rights for woman, unfettered by dogma driven evangelical/GOP agendas, is ready for some historical perspective. So rather than more opining, I want to share the thoughts from others who know way more about all this than I ever will.

But, first a few words from your sponsor: Yes, I am a partisan, but I’m a rational human, an Earth Centrist, meaning physical reality and the ‘natural order’ of things on our Earth are my guiding lights. Since I am rational human, I’m happy to listen to others thinking and to process it along with my own, use what I can and leave the rest. I figured I should toss that in since I’m so interested in the other’s ethical and moral foundations and sources of ‘authority’. :wink: cc

 

The politics of abortion: a historical perspective. M. McKeegan

Womens Health Issues. 1993 Fall;3(3):127-31.

Abstract
An analysis of the capture of the Republican party and the national agenda from the late 1970s into the 1990s by a coalition of political and religious conservatives.

PIP:
Paradoxically, as Americans became increasingly pro-choice, 2 anti-abortion Presidents were elected to serve for 12 years and pro-life forces captured the domestic agenda by overhauling the traditionally libertarian Republican party. This occurred because Republican analysts saw that the Democratic New Deal coalition was cracking, the traditionally conservative south and west began to control more seats in the House of Representatives, and Americans were becoming more affluent and, thus, more interested in taxes and inflation. Efforts were made to bring social conservatives, especially pro-lifers, into the Republican party with scare tactics used in the wording of direct mailings.

In the late 1970s, fundamentalist Christians became outraged by Supreme Court decisions banning school prayer and legalizing abortion and by Jimmy Carter’s decision to withdraw tax-exempt status from segregated church schools. This group was mobilized by radio and television preachers, especially televangelist Jerry Falwell who also used scare tactics to promote his Moral Majority.

The new right also tried to reach the nation’s 50 million Roman Catholics through the right-to-life movement. The Catholic bishops worked closely with the new right at first, but most Catholic lay people did not share their church’s opposition to abortion in all cases. When Ronald Reagan won the presidency in 1980, the new right was quick to claim the victory, even though polls showed that most Reagan voters opposed banning abortion.

For the next 12 years, Republican policies were crafted to please these new Republicans, with funding denied important international family planning agencies. Then in the mid-1980s, the forces of the new right began to wobble. Fundamentalist and Catholic Church leaders were rocked with sexual scandals, the pro-lifers began to fight among themselves, and the Moral Majority stopped raking in funds. When the Supreme Court’s Webster decision gave states the right to restrict abortion, a pro-choice backlash swept the nation. Congress followed suit.

Pro-lifers have resisted political marginalization, and their new strategy is exemplified by Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition which wants to organize members into a political force from the ground up. The religious right also maintains its firm hold on the Republican party, although pro-choice Republicans are urging the party to distance itself from the anti-abortion forces. With most Americans willing to accept some restrictions on abortion, however, and anti-choice activism continuing, abortion foes have made significant political gains in some states just as the Supreme Court has allowed states to regulate abortion. This will affect the women who most depend upon abortion, the young and the poor.

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Citizen. What do you mean by the ‘natural order’ of things on our Earth and how does it guide you?

3

I don’t know for sure, but he might be thinking of ethics the same way Sam Harris does (which is the same way I do.)

Here are some Sam Harris quotes to give you an idea of what that way of looking at ethics looks like:

  • "The science of morality is about maximizing psychological and social health."
  • 'To treat others ethically is to act out of concern for their happiness and suffering."
  • "Just as there is no such thing as Christian physics or Muslim Algebra, we will see that there is no such thing as Christian or Muslim morality."
  • "We can either have a twenty-first-century conversation about morality and the human well-being - a conversation in which we avail ourselves of all scientific insights and philosophical arguments that have accumulated in the last two thousand years of human discourse - or we can confine ourselves to a first-century conversation as it is preserved in the Bible."
Now, I don't want to put words into CC's mouth, so make sure you don't respond to him as though this is what he meant.