What really matters: Roe vs Wade

Marc

Donor
I thought I would toss out some counterfactuals that didn't involve either war or political intrigue or pop culture - all the other things that actually affect people's lives, past and present.
Here is a start:

In 1973 the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that state abortion bans infringed on plaintiffs’ Ninth and Fourteenth Amendment rights, effectively making abortion legal throughout the United States, and sparking a cultural civil war that has had profound effects on American society, and politics.

The alternate setting is a decision the other way. There are several (if low-order) possibilities of different Justices being on the court, or a more limited ruling, with caveats about the Constitution having an implied right to privacy.
I would argue that the effect of this would be one of the major ripples in time.

(Sidebar: I think Roe vs. Wade was absolutely the right ruling, but curious as to alternate consequences.)
 
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Planned Parenthood vs Casey was much closer you could have that be the point where the court decides that states would be allowed to ban abortion
 
I think the main change is adjustments to the evangelical movement and no rise of a pro life side. There's far less need for a pro life side if abortion isn't legalized by RvW, so no one side feeling that baby murder is now common and legal in the US. Being pro life is usually an evangelical plank as well, so removing that is one less thing for them to surge on. I don't think this'll stop the 70s-80s Moral Majority style things, there were other things in the air that helped provoke that, but it may give them a bit less gas. On the other hand, maybe it means more focus on other issues instead to make up for it. Could go a few ways, I suppose.
 
Not hard to tweek things so they go different. Cases take complicated road to the Supreme Court and a lot of things could have delayed it or accelerated it by a year or two.

Nixon put Powell on right before it and he voted with the "liberal contingent". Powell had been asked to serve before and said no, so not hard to envision a situation where he didn't join

Roe was a driving force in the rise of the religious right and it joining republican/Reagan push in the 80's

Without it, maybe they don't vote as much and with less turnout, some major butterflies occur as moderate republicans stay relevant.

On Democrat side, maybe pushed further left to try to fight it or maybe keep it on the state level for infighting as it is viewed as a state issue not a federal one.
 
I think the main change is adjustments to the evangelical movement and no rise of a pro life side. There's far less need for a pro life side if abortion isn't legalized by RvW, so no one side feeling that baby murder is now common and legal in the US. Being pro life is usually an evangelical plank as well, so removing that is one less thing for them to surge on. I don't think this'll stop the 70s-80s Moral Majority style things, there were other things in the air that helped provoke that, but it may give them a bit less gas. On the other hand, maybe it means more focus on other issues instead to make up for it. Could go a few ways, I suppose.

This. It can be argued that Roe v. Wade did more harm than good for the cause of abortion rights (and by extension, other social movements) since it gave the budding Religious Right an incredible cause to latch onto. Before, the main thing they organised around was the whole controversy over tax exemption of religious schools, which was in response to the court cases over Bob Jones University losing tax exemption for racial discrimination--that was definitely threatening to many of them, but it doesn't seem to have attracted the same response as Roe v Wade did (and the racial roots of it might've been a bit of an issue too). And we should remember that a lot of evangelicals were neutral on abortion until Roe v. Wade.
 
This. It can be argued that Roe v. Wade did more harm than good for the cause of abortion rights (and by extension, other social movements) since it gave the budding Religious Right an incredible cause to latch onto. . .
I respectfully disagree. First off, the decision gave a goodly number of actual women access to a safe abortion instead of an illegal, unsafe abortion. And, it established the principle that a woman has the right to decide what to do with her own body, just like a man does, just like a person in general.

Would have liked for evangelicals to have realized that a Constitutional amendment is unlikely, and in the meantime there’s work to be done in reducing the incidence of abortion, basically by providing social services so that low-income women have a real choice in whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term.

=======

PS I’m glad you brought up IRS vs. Bob Jones University over the issue of racial discrimination in admission policy. Paul Weyrich is the direct mail guy who worked the case on the side of Bob Jones University.
 
Let us not forget Roe v. Wade only made abortion legal nationwide. States were doing it individually, starting with New York on July 1, 1970. Even red states like Kansas had abortion rules the very next year.
 
Would have liked for evangelicals to have realized that a Constitutional amendment is unlikely, and in the meantime there’s work to be done in reducing the incidence of abortion, basically by providing social services so that low-income women have a real choice in whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term.

The problem is with that is that it requires a fundamental change how evangelicals view abortion. Trying to frame it as reducing abortions is missing the point of the argument to them - there's still baby killing going on. Merely reducing it isn't the goal, the goal is stopping it altogether. It's like saying 'Here, we're only killing x number of babies per day instead of y number, good work', it's not really grasping the essence of the position. Abortion being available illegally and in an unsafe way isn't really relevant to that mindset or logic. To that mindset, of course it's illegal, it's murder. This isn't a bad thing to them. It being unsafe is lamentable for all concerned, but it still murder, and the point is to stop murder, not make it safer to commit murder.

You can't really get to where you want to go with how evangelicals developed on abortion and the underlying arguments there.
 
This. It can be argued that Roe v. Wade did more harm than good for the cause of abortion rights (and by extension, other social movements) since it gave the budding Religious Right an incredible cause to latch onto. Before, the main thing they organised around was the whole controversy over tax exemption of religious schools, which was in response to the court cases over Bob Jones University losing tax exemption for racial discrimination--that was definitely threatening to many of them, but it doesn't seem to have attracted the same response as Roe v Wade did (and the racial roots of it might've been a bit of an issue too). And we should remember that a lot of evangelicals were neutral on abortion until Roe v. Wade.

Then abortion rights would never get anywhere if any move would cause evangelicals to lose their shit. They are reactionary by nature and so would be set off by anything that would offend their supposed moral high ground. THey weren't neutral on abortion; they already chose their side, but since it was not talked about, they did little about it.

If states decided on abortion rights, then basically it would still become an issue, but just a gradual one over time, not to mention states would further divided over these policies.
 
This. It can be argued that Roe v. Wade did more harm than good for the cause of abortion rights (and by extension, other social movements) since it gave the budding Religious Right an incredible cause to latch onto. Before, the main thing they organised around was the whole controversy over tax exemption of religious schools, which was in response to the court cases over Bob Jones University losing tax exemption for racial discrimination--that was definitely threatening to many of them, but it doesn't seem to have attracted the same response as Roe v Wade did (and the racial roots of it might've been a bit of an issue too). And we should remember that a lot of evangelicals were neutral on abortion until Roe v. Wade.

Bob Jones was after Roe v. Wade and the fight over Abortion was already being waged in the 1960s and early 70s at the State level.
 

Marc

Donor
The problem is with that is that it requires a fundamental change how evangelicals view abortion. Trying to frame it as reducing abortions is missing the point of the argument to them - there's still baby killing going on. Merely reducing it isn't the goal, the goal is stopping it altogether. It's like saying 'Here, we're only killing x number of babies per day instead of y number, good work', it's not really grasping the essence of the position. Abortion being available illegally and in an unsafe way isn't really relevant to that mindset or logic. To that mindset, of course it's illegal, it's murder. This isn't a bad thing to them. It being unsafe is lamentable for all concerned, but it still murder, and the point is to stop murder, not make it safer to commit murder.

You can't really get to where you want to go with how evangelicals developed on abortion and the underlying arguments there.

Precisely why I offered the analogy to the slave issue in the mid-19th century. An absolutely irreconcilable divide. And to further reinforce that analogy - the mostly successful attempt by former slave owners to strip freedom by other means from their slaves, relates directly to the post-Roe vs. Wade war by evangelicals et al, to effectively make choice a hollow right.

Going back to the original notion of the Republican party keeping a moderate/liberal wing, perhaps something happening along the lines of the American Independent Party (largely George's Wallace's vehicle) becoming predominant in the states that Wallace carried in 1968: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi. There is a history of regional third parties having some continuing, if very modest, success in the U.S. I'll admit, not very plausible, but not an impossible hypothesis. Without the deep South, the paleoconservative movement in the GOP has less influence.
 
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. . . requires a fundamental change how evangelicals view . . .
In OTL, the public discussion regarding date rape and acquaintance rape began in the mid-80s.

I wonder if this discussion could have begun a decade earlier in the mid-70s and evangelical Christians could have helped led the way? For example, a lady minister could say she had counselled too many women and teenage girls who report that the guy physically forced her or used alcohol as a weapon. And a male minister who’s physically imposing and looks like he could best most guys in a fight (and that helps!) says, even though less than a third of guys do this, often they victimize more than one person and do cause real human harm. And guys who aren’t jerks in this fashion need to speak up more and make it clear that they don’t admire such behavior in any fashion.

Now, evangelical Christians are still largely anti-sex, for example, being against premarital sex, maybe making somewhat of an unstated exception for engaged couples. So, evangelicals are not going to give the most realistic advice across the entire subject of sex. But they really might be able to get the conversation started in this regard.
 
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