Hacker News Reader

Comment by WJW | Hacker News Reader

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.

View on HN

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com