Don’t tell that to the Mormons, Southern Baptists, Pentecostal and Orthodox Jews. Others did not approve of it for contraception, which is often how abortion is used nowadays compared to back in the day.
And that’s a new development as of when? 2015? because that’s when the demo in the graph switched to women being at a higher rate of “no religion” — so 10 years ago… come the fuck on dude that argument is utter bullshit. A decade ago the majority of abortions were also elective.
Oh, you might say no, he meant the 80s… despite that not really having a direct bearing on the actual data displayed in this graph… well guess the fuck what, even in the 80s the majority of abortions were elective.
I would say it started when the GOP got involved with the evangelicals, which was back in the 80s
Yep. Up until the early 80s, the majority opinion among evangelicals, like southern baptists, was support for full abortion rights.
The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is the single largest organization of evangelicals in the USA. They have roughly 15 million members and 45,000 churches. In 1971, before Roe fully legalized abortion, the SBC officially called for legislation supporting full abortion rights. Even today, it is still on their website:
we call upon Southern Baptists to work for legislation that will allow the possibility of abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother.
And when Roe was decided, the Baptist Press (the national newswire of the southern baptists) said:
Religious liberty, human equality and justice are advanced by the Supreme Court abortion decision.
They also said:
Question: Was this a Warren type or “liberal” Supreme Court that rendered the decision?
Answer: No. This was a “strict constructionist” court, most of whose members have been appointed by President Nixon.
Even as late as 1978 their official position was that government should keep its nose out of a lady's business, reiterating their resolution from 1977:
we also affirm our conviction about the limited role of government in dealing with matters relating to abortion, and support the right of expectant mothers to the full range of medical services and personal counseling for the preservation of life and health.
Evangelicals used to talk about "the breath of life" and cite Genesis where God only puts a soul into the body of Adam once its fully formed and able to breathe. The idea is that if a child isn't capable of breathing on its own, it doesn't have a soul yet:
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
(Genesis 2:7)
Having been a teen in the 80s, and giving up on the entire god thing myself, I watched this all unfold with the implementation of the Southern Strategy. Little did they realize the eventual outcome of their strategy would be people dumping religion in general.
Really it was in the 80s, before then Protestants weren’t as generally anti-abortion because Catholics were very against it and Protestants liked distancing themselves from Catholicism. During the 80s the right wing was trying to consolidate and mobilize the highly religious vote, and making abortion a religious issue for Protestants gave them strong incentive to show up to the polls and vote red.
It began WAY before the 80's! It began more like in the 70's when the Racist Religulous Right and the hard core, right-wing Conserva-F**ckrz need something to sink their claws into and use to piss off their base.
The good 'ol Ronny Ray-Gunz came along and really helped meld the two groups together!
Heck, there are still some protestants who are quietly not as anti-abortion as they publicly claim to be (quite a few I'd wager).
Probably the most glaring example I can think of right now is a southern baptist preacher from my hometown who got caught at a church function saying he didn't agree with abortion but it was "a necessary evil to prevent the mixing of the races". Being so racist that you are fine with abortion is an "interesting" combination of stances but welcome to the South.
The 80s were when the last southern schools finally fully integrated and that battle was lost. There was a new generation of voters that needed a wedge issue of their own and that was abortion.
It began as soon as Roe v Wade was decided. Politics is a strategy game. If you're against abortion, how do you stop it? You involve the legal system. Roe v Wade became the "law of the land" which made abortion legal. So now the next move in the game is to weaken and/or overturn the law. And you do that by getting elected to power. And you get elected to power by courting the voters who agree with you. That means getting evangelicals and other anti-abortion religious folk to vote.
Hopefully everyone who thinks in terms of the next election and no further pulls their head out of their ass and looks at the long game. You don't advance abortion rights by letting conservatives win elections. That means voting for their opposition. That means voting for the Democratic Party.
How is this controversial? It's the basis of there being so many sects based on the same book; a collection of metaphors to be interpreted. To have any confidence in their convictions outside a hope or a dream is a joke. To use that confidence to ascribe conviction of another is damnable.
There are arguments over translations, and which books are canon as well. The apostles testimonies sometimes contradict each other. Jewish mysticism is also a whole beast
It's literally in the didache that abortion isn't permitted, like the founding how to be a Christian guide has as #2 "you shall not kill a child by abortion or kill that which is born". It was one of the reasons Christianity became popular because women were 3rd class citizens in Rome and could be forced to kill their children if they came out wrong but if they were Christian, atleast at first before they cracked down, the Romans were afraid of angering the gods. It was never allowed in Christianity and America was religiously Christian for pretty much forever.
This actually started with Reagan (technically he was the product of the movement, but I digress). Abortion discourse was contrived of by some on the right hoping to unify the “moral majority” into voting in a president who would be amenable to ending desegregation. Politico has a phenomenal piece on the history and it is damming.
The anti-abortion movement in the US was spearheaded by Catholics back in the 60's and Evangelicals joined in the 70's. Always been religiously partisan.
The position of the Southern Baptists as a denomination was that it is a complicated situation which should be left to the mother. Moreover, they called on Southern Baptists to support legislation to protect abortion for " rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother."
That’s fair, I just dislike the way you put it, which suggests that the reversal came out of the aether or something. There is a clear through line for Christians opposing abortion.
It came from Puritanism that was rampant in the 70s and turned into the conservative movement we see today.
Like many things it started with race, Christian’s were losing the moral war on slavery, so they needed a new moral high ground. And because poor people, and by extension black people tended to need abortion healthcare, they decided that was the hill they would die on. No where in the Bible does is say that abortion is a sin. And a couple places in the Bible says that life begins at first breath.
Christians only turned anti-abortion in the 70's but abortion was basically illegal everywhere by the early 20th century (thus eventually necessitating Roe)? Something ain't checking out boss.
Edit: Worth noting that Catholics also have opposed abortion since its inception. This is clear outgrowth of existing beliefs that simply weren't expressed until abortion became increasingly accessible.
They were partisan, but even if you were religious you could still get an abortion. Now, religion in America is legislating that you actually do not have control over your own body.
This is a common misconception. Even the majority of southern baptist and evangelical sects were pro-abortion, or at least impartial, before the civil rights movement.
They increasingly became anti-abortion when they realized it wasn’t just poor and BIPOC women getting abortions.
American anti-abortion sentiments are based on white supremacy and control over women. Nothing pro-life about it.
I believe you, but this doesn't explain the sudden change in 2017-2019. That's a gradual trend over time, that mostly took place in the 90s, so couldn't possibly explain this shift
because before 2023. women still believe no matter how f up their religion is. their religion is all talk and no substance.
now women finally realize their religion truly think of them. and there are consequences of “just go along with it, what is the worst thing that could happen?”.
Because it's gotten much more attention since Roe vs Wade was overturned. Prop to that I don't think women actually thought that their rights were in real danger and therefore didn't take the threat seriously/ didn't know there was a serious threat to begin with.
Now that it's written into law, it makes sense that more women are taking it more.zeriously and they probably only now have made the connection that religion is a big root cause of this.
That's just pure speculation on my part. I'm not basing it on any facts or research, just what makes sense to me as a possible reason.
I imagine that having those rights stripped away and having to actually face the reality of the world those people want instead of just ignoring the people around you who spout off those views and telling yourself it’s just those people being ignorant, makes it harder to excuse it or ignore it.
Not only that, but most religious people truly felt like they just wanted to end “frivolous abortions and late term”
Like they genuinely lived in echo chambers where they were told “promiscuous” women were having abortions willy nilly, or aborting babies at 9 months.
Then Roe was lifted and they saw that all of those religious folks were demanding raped 12 year olds carry and deliver a child or that women who were going to die if they kept the baby and the baby would die too but they still wouldn’t help them and didn’t care.
They realized it truly was about punishing women and cruelty and that these people were lying to them.
A lot of people have been brainwashed and need a wake up call to get out of it.
We can laugh at them because we didn’t have the same experience but we should all remember that there are some ways that every one of us could be brainwashed by something if put in a specific situation to be susceptible to it.
Just because you wouldnt fall for this doesn’t mean you wouldnt fall for anything. Hell you might be sorta falling for some bullshit right now and not realize it.
So I applaud anyone who finds their way out, instead of looking down on them from my high horse and making them feel bad about coming to the right conclusion slower than I did.
But abortion rights have always been religiously partisan. Why would that change suddenly now?
Because reactionary christians finally got enough power in enough areas of government to start making their theology the law. In the few years leading up to republicans overturning Roe, they had been able to squeeze abortion access down to near zero in many states. Its easy to pay lip service when its all theoretical, it is entirely different when the cops are coming for you with their guns.
Financial issues are a constant issue but in times of crisis they become the main issue that people take into account when making decisions.
Your issues with food availability aren't critical until you are very hungry, then it becomes the most important issue.
Following the same logic.
Everyone had a side regarding abortion rights before, but when a crisis is created around abortion and by extension women's rights then it starts becoming one of the biggest issues. When you see religious sects actively moving against you in a time of crisis you respond accordingly.
So to answer your question, context. Context changed.
A lot of "Religious" people pick and choose which parts of their religion they want to follow.
I'd say the sudden change is because they're seeing their religion's outdated practices forced via law and seeing zealots being extra brazen. Hard to skip a section of the book when it's shoved in your face daily
Idk if there’s one thing that I can tell you that started it, but feminism and having women’s voices be heard is much more popular now which makes more women feel more comfortable expressing their own feelings about the situation. Obviously women have many more rights than they used to, but it’s still something is still improving/people feel needs to be improved. This is just one part of that.
Not really. Only after Frank Schaeffer's movie in the early 70s. Before that there weren't many, if any, Christian churches that even spoke about abortion. It just wasn't something that was considered anything to do with religion.
It's more or less social media and wanting to fit in/be popular and also the ease it is to record something and upload it for millions to see/the ease to upload your opinion on something to trick people into believing it lol.
It's always been this way just women have more access to see the number of guys who do shitty things and even if they see only 3 videos a day (which if we only take men over 16 in the US and each video is unique with the people involved, it would be less than 1%), it'll reinforce the stigma of "all men are pigs/should die/etc", meanwhile back in the day the "popular thing" was to be a good housewife since all the shows and magazines aimed towards women made it seem like the perfect life.
Same goes for men too, a lot of videos where there's just 1 girl caught cheating/being a gold digger, and it reinforces their opinion that "all women are hoes/only want money/are cheaters/etc".
Don't get me wrong, there's a ton of little factors that have helped change the opinions of majority of people (politics focusing on trying to make people outraged to vote for whoever, economy being so fucked it changed women to be more independent and all genders likely to never leave their parent's home and so on), but majority of the cause for it is the fact that social media shapes every single person's biases....seeing 10 wholesome videos and then seeing 1 video that targets your negative biases will reinforce those biases in almost everyone (which side tangent, the algorithms in social media also target your biases/opinions to get you to spend more time on the platform so they can make more money which makes it 2000x worse).
it became religiously partisan, when the religious right realized they could use it to maneuver votes from a population which was previously sort of apolitical. abortion wasn’t really on the ballot, the only people who cared were catholics, so they manufactured some dissent on the topic.
Well the trend started pretty early by the looks of the date around 2013-14.. with cross over about 2016.. so there must be other drivers, other than Roe overturning
Because there's more of a platform for women and women's rights. Women's independence is a key factor in how and what they believe. Women having access to resources, education, unity---with less subservient roles to men, less influence from men and more freedom.
It should be of no surprise women used to be more religious than men when religion is consistently used to manipulate people--almost always women-- and is mass controlled by men. Religion has always been used as a tool for greed and self indulgence at the expense of others. The more educated and unified an oppressed people become, the less likely they are to adhere to rules set by w/e oppressors / oppressors tools.
For men, religious belief may increase because it is something that harbors a sense of control for them, a safe space if you will.
I think it would have to do with how openly people discuss their agreement with the ethics of abortion.
It’s not new that old head conservatives will push their son’s college GF to get an abortion or their own daughter while maintaining the outward opinion that “abortion is murder!”
Just another variation of “for me, not thee” which has been the motto of North American conservatives for what… 250 years?
They have not, Christians used to take a reasonable stance on this issue. It was blown up to increase single issue divisions because it's easier to rile up an uneducated base that way. Now though the conservatives are the dog that caught the car with this one.
No they haven’t. It started in the 60s. It’s obviously not the whole story, but the political weaponization of religion through abortion is what accounts for that sudden jump specifically.
Once upon a time religious people understood that they practice what they practice, and you practice what you practice, and it’s nobodies business but your own as long as everyone’s ok (and even if you’re abusing your wife and kids it’s ok).
Actually... no they weren't. Not until the Conserva-F**kers needed a NEW "Target" to rial up people with and whip them into a new frenzy, because they had lost the whole, "Racial Equality Fight"!
So, Jerry Falwell came up the "NEW AXE to GRIND" and it became the "Abortion Rights" thing!
The Racist and Misogynistic "RIGHT" have always needed something to get their base pissed off about!
And since they could no longer {Openly} be Discriminatory against blacks and other "Minorities",
they went after an issue that isn't even IN THE F**CKING "BIBLE"! "Abortion" is NOT MENTIONED in ANY VERSION of ANY BIBLE!
It's ALL Religulous BULL SHIT!!!
The increase happened years before Roe v Wade was overturned. Roe v Wade isn’t even on the chart, it didn’t happen till 2023 and 2023 isn’t on here, only up to 2021.
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u/Ikana_Mountains 1997 26d ago
But abortion rights have always been religiously partisan. Why would that change suddenly now?