AHC:late legalization of US abortion

samcster94

Banned
In OTL in 1973, Roe V. Wade occurred, but for political reasons, it became easy for religious fundamentalists to want to ban abortion. What if abortion was only fully legalized later??? Bonus points if when legalization happens, nobody cares and the "pro-life" movement is a fringe movement.
 
Well. the US still has quite a bit of opposition to legalized same-sex marriage(albeit more to do with getting religious people exempt from recognizing or facilitating them, rather than seeking an outright reversal of the SCOTUS ruling), and that's WITHOUT the presence at the middle of the controversy of a quasi-person(ie. the fetus) having their supposed life threatened by the procedure.

So, no, I wouldn't neccessarily see a later legalization butterflying away religious opposition. Especially if, as with same-sex marriage, there is piecemeal progress toward the goal(eg. state by state legalization), which will keep opponents on their toes and ready for the Big Fight down the road.
 
The answer is a more pro-choice America, with abortion as less of a political issue, with the Religious Right (who in part built themselves on this) less of a force.

It's been said it was easier to get an abortion in a place like Mississippi back then than nowadays. Roe v Wade helped crystalise abortion as a major political issue. In part you can thank former Surgeon General Koop, who before being appointed by Reagan had appeared in several propaganda films (widely distributed to churches) by the anti-abortion side of the Evangelicals--remember that many evangelical groups, like the Southern Baptists, were basically pro-choice back in the 70s. The fact the government basically rammed the issue down everyone's throat gave pro-life arguments a great place to fester. Evangelicals already were pissed about what the government did about the Bob Jones University integration issue, and abortion was a natural place to jump to after that was done with (thanks to those aforementioned well-done propaganda films).

A late legalisation of abortion (nationally) would thus ironically be the best for the pro-choice movement, since the pro-life movement would basically be minimalised in influence. In retrospect, Roe v. Wade was a mistake if the goal was abortion rights.
 
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