GOP Doesn't become the Pro-Life Party

Prior to Reagan in 1980, the GOP wasn't really much of a Pro-life party. Jimmy Carter after all was the first born-again president and George HW Bush was pro-choice before he ran for president. Even Reagan didn't make a big deal out of it in 1976 IIRC.

What if the GOP hadn't become the pro-life party? Being pro-life brought a lot of single-issue voters (Catholics in particular) into the GOP who otherwise aren't all that conservative.
 
It wasn't a big deal for Protestants until the 1970s. But within the public intellectual and pundit classes, it emerged as a liberal vs. conservative cleave in the 1950s, and intensified as secular second-wave feminism became an important component of liberalism. Secularism, in turn, has been a key component of liberalism since liberalism arose in the 18th century. Religious minorities routinely vote for more liberal parties, and not just in the West (see e.g. Arab-Israelis, Korean Christians, and Indian Muslims), and parties on the left and center-left often respond by incorporating their concerns into their messaging, but they stop short of compromising on secularization. Occasionally they compromise at the very edges, e.g. by denouncing a controversial atheist (such as Taslima Nasrin in India), but they don't change their core issues. Thus, in Korea there are voices starting to call for gay marriage, and those cluster in the Democratic Party as I understand it, together with often vocally homophobic Christians; Korea is of course well behind the West here, but it's catching up. For the same reason, it's pretty much inevitable that liberal parties would come to support abortion rights once abortion became safe and women started taking middle-class jobs that absolute control over reproduction became a key issue for feminist women.
 
Prior to Reagan in 1980, the GOP wasn't really much of a Pro-life party. Jimmy Carter after all was the first born-again president and George HW Bush was pro-choice before he ran for president. Even Reagan didn't make a big deal out of it in 1976 IIRC.

What if the GOP hadn't become the pro-life party? Being pro-life brought a lot of single-issue voters (Catholics in particular) into the GOP who otherwise aren't all that conservative.

"Jimmy Carter after all was the first born-again president..." So? that doesn't mean he was pro-life on abortion.

Even in 1976, the GOP under Ford was definitely to the right of the Democrats under Carter on abortion.

Republican platform: "The Republican Party favors a continuance of the public dialogue on abortion and supports the efforts of those who seek enactment of a constitutional amendment to restore protection of the right to life for unborn children." http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=25843

Democratic platform: "We fully recognize the religious and ethical nature of the concerns which many Americans have on the subject of abortion. We feel, however, that it is undesirable to attempt to amend the U.S. Constitution to overturn the Supreme Court decision in this area." http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29606

There were certainly more pro-life Democrats and pro-choice Republicans in 1976 than subsequently--but the tendency of each party was already apparent:

"Taking into consideration all of the votes cast on the House floor on the Hyde Amendment, the voting index for the 94th Congress confirms that Democrats, as a whole, were more pro-choice than were Republicans. The mean index of support for abortion rights among Democrats was 49 percent, while for Republicans the mean was 24 percent. Data on the median and the distribution of index scores is more revealing. The median index position for Republicans was 0 percent, while for Democrats, who were distributed at either end of the spectrum of index scores, the median position was 50 percent.." https://books.google.com/books?id=_jpqImtDBUIC&pg=PT104
 
In the U.S., the conservative party combines . . . (1) pro-rich economics, (2) pro-traditional religion (or, pro- doctrinaire religion), and (3) pro-“strength” foreign policy (in a rather one-dimensional way),

is it this way in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Korea, Japan, China (recognizable fraction of nominal ‘Communist’ party), India, Malaysia, Kenya, South Africa, Angola, Nigeria, Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Nicaragua, Mexico, etc, etc, etc.
 
Well, if the Republicans want to keep their monopoly on religion, they're going to have to find support elsewhere if they don't take an anti-abortion stance.
 
HHH in '68, Reagan in '68, No watergate, Bush in '80, Ford in '76, etc. The POD of your choice to make elections not focus on trying to win the south/suburban social conservative because one side or another wins it earlier so the GOP stays a center-right party.

There'd be pro-lifers sure, but they'd either vote democrat for economic reasons/yellow dog dem reasons or vote GOP because of crime/race. There'd still be more pro-lifers in the GOP than in dems* but it wouldn't be a focal issue.

* Center-right GOP vs left/clintonite neoliberal/center left(up to you if it's blue dogs/wannabe social democrats/mcogvernites0 democrats. Your choice as to which democrats you have.
 
Reagan in ‘76, he crashes and burns just like Carter did

(although not quite as badly because Reagan really is a Keynesian at heart)
 
I forgot where I saw the polling but among voters there wasn't really a partisan sorting on abortion until the 80s. As David T demonstrated, how that is seen in the political class is different.
 
Abortion being used to selectively abort girls could have prevented the feminist movement from becoming as pro-Abortion as they did in OTL, if there had been an incident exposing as much early enough before being pro-Abortion become a part of their identify.
Then you just need something to have the GOP become not as anti. With anti-abortion vote market being more contested, I'd not consider that so unlikely. Perhaps some study like Freakonomics did, but also way earlier showing how much welfare spending could be saved by allow poor women to abort. Yes cynical as f***, but well it's politics.
 
Being pro-abortion and pro-euthanasia seems like something rich people might like, to control the masses they hate. I'm honestly surprised Republicans aren't in favor of things like these.
 
Humphrey winning in 68 is gonna make the Unions a lot more influential to the Democratic Party instead of the New left. A more union/working class dominated Democratic Party is gonna be more economically left wing and socially conservative than the Democratic Party is irl
 
Humphrey winning in 68 is gonna make the Unions a lot more influential to the Democratic Party instead of the New left. A more union/working class dominated Democratic Party is gonna be more economically left wing and socially conservative than the Democratic Party is irl

The upper-middle class/top 20% of the electorate and the GOP's base of white suburbanites who at least have some college/a degree are the actually socially conservative or if left/democrat voting simply prudish and not just spite voters like the working class. A more working class-led democratic party wouldn't be as influenced by those people.
 
Humphrey winning in 68 is gonna make the Unions a lot more influential to the Democratic Party instead of the New left. A more union/working class dominated Democratic Party is gonna be more economically left wing and socially conservative than the Democratic Party is irl

There is still going to be a Roe v. Wade (and indeed it will probably be an 8-1 rather than 7-2 decision, since Rehnquist will not be on the Court) and unless Humphrey actually repudiates him--which I don't see him doing--opponents of abortion will view him as a political enemy and will have nowhere to turn but to the Republican party, which after the loss of Nixon is IMO more likely to move to the right ("we have to pick up the Wallace voters!") than to the left.
 

I wouldn't be so sure that Humphrey would be end up regarded as an enemy of the anti-abortion movement.

Humphrey+MCCL+New+cover+9-74+lo-res.jpg
 
Thus, in Korea there are voices starting to call for gay marriage, and those cluster in the Democratic Party as I understand it, together with often vocally homophobic Christians; Korea is of course well behind the West here, but it's catching up. For the same reason, it's pretty much inevitable that liberal parties would come to support abortion rights once abortion became safe and women started taking middle-class jobs that absolute control over reproduction became a key issue for feminist women.

Interestingly, though, the most "Christian"(in the common Korean sense of the word, ie. protestant) president so far has been Lee Myung-bak, a conservative Presbyterian(closer to western fundamentalists in social outlook) who ran for the Grand National Party in 2007. But the traditional stronghold of that party has always been the southeast, which is the most heavily Buddhist area of the country.

I believe there were some quips made about Christians winning power by garnering votes from Buddhists. Once in power, LMB quickly proceeded to alienate Buddhists with statements and policies pretty blatantly biased in favour of Christianity. He changed his tune somewhat after the protests referenced in that article.

Historically, Christians were also at the forefront, and numerically overrepresented, in the anti-Japanese resistance. I'm not sure how they line up politically today; you do hear about them taking socially conservative stands, ie. they were supposedly instrumental in blocking a gay-rights bill a few years back, though the ones I've met here is South Jeolla Province seem about as left-leaning as the region generally.
 
I would say the the republicans have never been "pro-life" at all. More like anti-woman and pro-hypocrisy. After all, no one is more for abortion than the "family values" republican with a pregnant mistress.
 
Being pro-abortion and pro-euthanasia seems like something rich people might like, to control the masses they hate. I'm honestly surprised Republicans aren't in favor of things like these.

Do a google on Garrett Hardin. And for a one-stop overview of the tendency, let me quote myself from the AH thread called "A Darker Shade of Green"...

Sex And Destiny

Germaine Greer's anti-malthusian tome from the early 80s(I mentioned this on another thread about right-wing population control).

The book almost reads like Alternate History, because it was written at a time when it was still possible to view the population-control movement as right-wing, and Greer quite easily attaches that label to many of the people who funded and supported the movement(of which she gives a pretty extensive history, at times bordering on the arcane). Written before the 1984 American election, and one wonders how aware, if at all, Greer was of the ascension of the Religious Right, along with it's effectively pro-fecund agenda. within the Republican Party.

Highly recommended, if you can find a copy.

A Darker Shade of Green
 
I think it’s as simple as: if the Republicans hadn’t, the Democrats would have. Assuming some people still generally care about abortion in this scenario, it’s prime political real estate, so if one hadn’t snapped it up, I think the other would.
 
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So it seems fairly clear that the circumstances around Roe v Wade makes it almost certain that unassailable battle lines will be drawn. Changing the composition of the court requires a deep POD.

Is there another case that gets us a ruling without such hard lines? Can we imagine an alternate trial with different witnesses giving different recommendations?

I'm trying to think of what kind of a ruling would be..."muddled" enough to keep people from going hard-line on this.

There's also the question of whether or not Catholics and born-agains are destined to take the lead on this issue. Getting the party to support something like contraception and opposing abortion could be interesting, and doable if the old-guard WASPs take the lead for some reason.
 
Getting the party to support something like contraception and opposing abortion could be interesting, and doable if the old-guard WASPs take the lead for some reason.

If a political party(you mean the GOP?) is anti-abortion, AND led by WASPs, I think the most pro-contraception they're likely to get is supporting its use by married couples(unlike what the Catholics believe), but still opposing its distribution to minors(especially in schools), or government campaigns promoting condoms for STD prevention etc.

I know there are quite a number of examples of individual Christian activists who are pro-life on abortion but liberal on other social and economic issues(Dorothy Day comes to mind here), but for the most part, I think the mainstream pro-life movement is always going to be socially conservative.
 
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