{"id":23204,"date":"2016-02-10T05:45:17","date_gmt":"2016-02-10T10:45:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=23204"},"modified":"2016-02-09T21:08:40","modified_gmt":"2016-02-10T02:08:40","slug":"when-being-pro-life-was-a-liberal-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2016\/02\/when-being-pro-life-was-a-liberal-issue\/","title":{"rendered":"When being pro-life was a liberal issue"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Not only did liberals used to be pro-life, opposing abortion used to be a progressive principle. \u00a0So shows a new book on the origins of the pro-life movement before Roe v. Wade<\/a>, reviewed in the Atlantic<\/em>.<\/p>\n

From Emma Green,\u00a0Review: \u2018Defenders of the Unborn\u2019 and the Secret Progressive History of the Pro-Life Movement \u2013 The Atlantic<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Ronald Reagan. Barry Goldwater. George Wallace. These men probably won\u2019t be featured on pro-choice pamphlets any time soon, but during at least some point in their political careers, the Moral Majority-era president, conservative stalwart, and infamous segregationist all favored the legalization of abortion. In the four decades since the Supreme Court decided Roe vs. Wade, the political debate over abortion in America has become stale and polarized, with two sides utterly divided and little change in public opinion. But in the years leading up to Roe, many people\u2019s views on abortion didn\u2019t fit neatly into either liberal or conservative ideology. In fact, early anti-abortion activists viewed their cause as a struggle for civil and human rights, of a piece with social programs like the New Deal and the Great Society.<\/p>\n

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In a new book, Defenders of the Unborn<\/a>, the historian Daniel K. Williams looks at the first years of the self-described pro-life movement in the United States, focusing on the long-overlooked era before Roe. It\u2019s somewhat surprising that the academy hasn\u2019t produced such a history before now, although Williams says that\u2019s partially because certain archives have only recently opened. But the gap in scholarship is also partly due to the difficulty of putting abortion into a single intellectual framework. \u201cToo many historians took for granted that the pro-life movement emerged as a backlash against feminism, and\/or as a backlash against the Supreme Court\u2019s decision in 1973,\u201d Williams said in an interview. Many of today\u2019s most ardent anti-abortion activists likely identify with this kind of sexual conservatism and resentment toward a meddling government. But in many ways, their political convictions are counter to the original aspirations of the movement. As Williams writes in his book, \u201cThe pro-life movement that we have always labeled \u2018conservative\u2019 was at one time much more deeply rooted in the liberal rights-based values than we might have suspected.\u201d<\/p>\n

Without knowing this history, Williams argues, it\u2019s difficult to understand why pro-life views have had such staying power in American politics, even as public opinion on other social issues, such as LGBT rights and birth-control use, has steadily shifted to become more permissive. Abortion, he says, has a different history. Its early opponents thought it was their duty, and their government\u2019s duty, to protect the unborn alongside the poor and the weak. They believed their position offered women empowerment, not oppression.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, this history shows how contorted the abortion debate has become, as women\u2019s bodies and children\u2019s futures have been turned into rhetorical proving grounds for politicians left and right. Today, pro-life Democrats are nearly extinct, and openly pro-choice Republicans rarely make it to a national stage like this year\u2019s presidential race. Fifty years ago, this wasn\u2019t the case. What happened to America\u2019s progressive pro-lifers?<\/p>\n

[Keep reading. . .]<\/a><\/p>\n