The Pew Research Center reports that “about four-in-ten (41%) [of Americans] say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases” (Fingerhut) and 59% of those against abortion identify as Republican. In the current political climate, the abortion debate has become extremely divisive. But how did it become so polarizing? The Pro-Life movement emerged following the Republican Party’s decision to mobilize and politicize evangelicals after their fight to stop the desegregation of religious schools and the threatened removal of schools’ tax exemption status for de facto segregation.
The abortion debate has become a hot button issue in this current election. In the third debate, we watched as Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump duked it out over the …show more content…
Wade as the start of the abortion issue. After Roe v. Wade was decided by the supreme court, there was very little backlash from the public. There were people who opposed abortion, but not enough to form a majority, let alone a movement. This was a miniscule decision to the religious community, although that is not how it is seen today. The supreme court decision that infuriated evangelicals was “Green v. Kennedy, a 1970 decision stripping tax-exempt status from "segregation academies’ ” (Marcotte). This mobilized the evangelical community to protest the court’s decision in huge numbers. They felt this was an attack on their strongly held beliefs about race. The evangelical community came out to support segregation and racism in their religious …show more content…
The Republicans recognized that this was becoming a major issue that the electorate felt very strongly about. They worked hard to make evangelicals believe that “if evangelicals don’t mobilize to stop abortion, infanticide and involuntary euthanasia will soon become widespread” (Dudley), that abortion is morally wrong, and that the bible and God tells us that abortion is wrong and should be illegal. This type of fear and thinking has lead to the continued growth and popularity of the Pro Life movement. Almost all the reasoning that Schaeffer and the Republicans provided have been proven false, but the movement has not stopped because now people have grown up learning that abortion is wrong and a political issue that aligns you with a party.
Politicians would have you believe that the Pro-Life movement was birthed after the Roe v. Wade decision — that the “moral majority” was so appalled by the decision that they had to mobilize. In fact, the only religious community that had a Pro-Life stance during the Roe v. Wade case was Roman Catholics and this opinion was not widely shared. The majority of the current Pro-Life movement identify as evangelical which further proves that Roe v. Wade was not the cause of the Pro-Life
The abortion debate has become a hot button issue in this current election. In the third debate, we watched as Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump duked it out over the …show more content…
Wade as the start of the abortion issue. After Roe v. Wade was decided by the supreme court, there was very little backlash from the public. There were people who opposed abortion, but not enough to form a majority, let alone a movement. This was a miniscule decision to the religious community, although that is not how it is seen today. The supreme court decision that infuriated evangelicals was “Green v. Kennedy, a 1970 decision stripping tax-exempt status from "segregation academies’ ” (Marcotte). This mobilized the evangelical community to protest the court’s decision in huge numbers. They felt this was an attack on their strongly held beliefs about race. The evangelical community came out to support segregation and racism in their religious …show more content…
The Republicans recognized that this was becoming a major issue that the electorate felt very strongly about. They worked hard to make evangelicals believe that “if evangelicals don’t mobilize to stop abortion, infanticide and involuntary euthanasia will soon become widespread” (Dudley), that abortion is morally wrong, and that the bible and God tells us that abortion is wrong and should be illegal. This type of fear and thinking has lead to the continued growth and popularity of the Pro Life movement. Almost all the reasoning that Schaeffer and the Republicans provided have been proven false, but the movement has not stopped because now people have grown up learning that abortion is wrong and a political issue that aligns you with a party.
Politicians would have you believe that the Pro-Life movement was birthed after the Roe v. Wade decision — that the “moral majority” was so appalled by the decision that they had to mobilize. In fact, the only religious community that had a Pro-Life stance during the Roe v. Wade case was Roman Catholics and this opinion was not widely shared. The majority of the current Pro-Life movement identify as evangelical which further proves that Roe v. Wade was not the cause of the Pro-Life