Why is Abortion a Conservative Cause?

This is a serious question. In 1972, Gallup reported 69 percent of Republicans agreed that “the decision to have an abortion should be made solely by a woman and her physician.” At the time, this was a higher percentage than among Democrats. *

According to political scientist Greg Adams, among voters, “Republicans were more pro-choice than Democrats up until the late 1980s.” *

A lot of water under the bridge since then, as the abortion issue was so effectively hijacked as a political and cultural shibboleth by the Right. This began with Nixon and his political strategist, Pat Buchanan, as a way to win the Catholic vote, and took off in the ‘80s with evangelical fervor.

Republicans have traditionally always been in favor of “hands off” government policies, of which abortion restrictions and bans are, literally, the opposite, when they dictate mandatory ultrasounds and the like.

Minority Rules

Of course the answer to the privacy and women’s rights argument has always been that a fertilized egg should be considered a human being with the same rights as a born person.

But there is no scientific, ethical, moral, or religious consensus on this. Even the Bible contradicts the idea that a fetus is a person, in Exodus 21:22-25. Abortion opponents are basically trying to impose a factional religious belief on society as a whole, something we would never tolerate if it were Hindus and beef, Muslims and pork, or any other of a number of faith-based injunctions.

Why should some be able to force the rest of us to follow their worldview, at the risk of imprisonment if we behave differently?

Again, why is abortion a conservative cause?

* See Jill Lepore, "Birthright," the New Yorker, 11/14/11