Evangelicals Opposed Abortion Long Before Leaders Caught Up

A recently leaked draft opinion suggested that the Supreme Court will soon overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that established a woman's right to an abortion. To get here, evangelical leaders and voters have spent 50 years pushing Republicans to support conservative justices and to promote policies that would curtail or outlaw abortion. But how did evangelicals become so opposed to abortion rights? Observers often note that before Roe v. Wade, opposition to abortion rested primarily in Catholic circles. By the late 1970s, however, evangelical leaders like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and their politically allied operatives reacted to and fomented a post-Roe backlash that shifted evangelical opinion on abortion from diverse to conservative. These activist-leaders then mobilized evangelicals to get involved in politics.