billmoyers | Conventional wisdom holds that the rise of the religious right as a
political force to be reckoned with during the 1970s and 1980s was
driven by conservative Christians’ intense opposition to the Supreme
Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade. But Dartmouth College’s Randall Balmer writes that
“the abortion myth quickly collapses under historical scrutiny.” He
notes that “it wasn’t until 1979 — a full six years after Roe — that evangelical leaders, at the behest of conservative activist Paul Weyrich,
seized on abortion not for moral reasons, but …. because the
anti-abortion crusade was more palatable than the religious right’s real
motive: protecting segregated schools.”
When Roe was
first decided, most of the Southern evangelicals who today make up the
backbone of the anti-abortion movement believed that abortion was a
deeply personal issue in which government shouldn’t play a role. Some
were hesitant to take a position on abortion because they saw it as a
“Catholic issue,” and worried about the influence of Catholic teachings
on American religious observance.
Shortly after the decision was handed down, The Baptist Press, a wire service run by the Southern Baptist Convention — the biggest Evangelical organization in the US — ran an op-ed praising the ruling.
“Religious liberty, human equality and justice are advanced by the
Supreme Court abortion decision,” read the January 31, 1973, piece by W.
Barry Garrett, The Baptist Press’s Washington bureau chief.
