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Comment by prirun | Hacker News Reader

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I like a good conspiracy theory as much as anyone, but is it really so hard to believe that people could object to abortion on religious grounds? I agree that anyone rich would have little problem flying to a state where abortion is legal though.

The time period in the article is too short. However, when I grew up, abortion wasn't an issue for Protestants, which was the dominant religion where I lived. They considered it a Catholic issue. Abortion became an issue after Republicans began to implement their southern strategy, raising it as an issue to bring evangelists and fundamentalists into their religious right coalition. They created pamphlets, movies, meetings, etc. to make abortion a religious issue. As their propaganda campaign developed, you could watch abortion spread as an issue in Protestant churches through the 1980s and finally become an issue for the majority of white evangelical and fundamentalist Protestant by the early 1990s.

> However, when I grew up, abortion wasn't an issue for Protestants, which was the dominant religion where I lived. They considered it a Catholic issue. Abortion became an issue after Republicans began to implement their southern strategy, raising it as an issue to bring evangelists and fundamentalists into their religious right coalition.

I really doubt that the pro-life movement was deliberately orchestrated by a Republican-party conspiracy, as you seem to imply. Though I wouldn't be surprised if the Republicans identified a developing organic movement as political opportunity, which they then seized upon.

It totally was. I watched it all play out. The cynicism was breathtaking to behold.

But it was not a conspiracy. It was just a plan. Conspiracy is collusion to commit a crime. Cynical politics is not a crime.

That has no bearing on what just transpired.

Religious Republicans (and many religious Democrats) very much do care about abortion. Republicans in general just use it as a wedge issue to wall off the base, just like Democrats in general who also use it as one of their top 3 wedge issues. Our current President pushed for a constitutional amendment to overturn Roe.

and hillary clinton ran with an anti-abortion mate

"Does anyone think Republicans / conservatives actually give a shit about unborn babies? I don't."

That begs the question. Beware of trying to fit and squeeze every phenomenon in the world into your own prejudices.

My experience with the pro-life crowd is that they really consider abortion on par with murder and that is what motivates them to fight on. Even in a country like mine, where abortion is widely accepted and pro-life positions won't help you electorally or socially at all.

They also are against gun control, and generally favor allowing police to murder freely, provided the victims have brown-enough skin..

So, no: their politics are very, very far from consistent.

Everyone's is. Politics is tribal, not logical. Take every single political tribe in the history of humanity, starting with Ancient Greek city polities and ending with modern democracies, Russia and the Islamic state, and examine their beliefs. Contradictions are rife.

For me, the lesson is that if you value your integrity, you shouldn't join a political tribe. ANY of them. Green, red, blue, yellow, these are all a loyalty-first, thought-maybe-later groups.

> Does anyone think Republicans / conservatives actually give a shit about unborn babies? I don't. What I think they do like is having plenty of workers available who have no choice but to accept bad working conditions, low pay, multiple temp jobs without insurance, etc.

Yes, definitely. Do you a very homogeneous social group or something? The alternative would be that all pro-lifers are conniving bad faith actors. I shouldn’t have to say more for that to seem very suspicious and certainly incorrect.

Pro-choice and pro-life positions are both quite logically consistent, internally. Try and reckon with that.

This is a tantalizing conspiracy theory. However, the event dates do not match up. The conservatives have been trying to overturn Roe for much longer than this year, and Amy Coney Barrett who started serving in late 2020. She was clearly appointed by the conservatives to help overturn Roe. The current unionization push started to really push steam in 2021, which occurred afterwards.

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