IamThunderbolt
Well-known member
By 1980, 19 states had petitioned Congress to call a Constitutional convention for the purpose of amending the Constitution to protect the right to life.
Interestingly enough, usual suspects like AL, UT, AR, and IN were joined by RI, MA, PA, and NJ.
http://article5library.org/analyze.php?topic=Right+to+life&res=1&gen=0&ylimit=0
You’re correct. I had my timeline off b/c US v. Bob Jones wasn’t decided until 1983. The ramp up begin in the late seventies as a strategy leading up to the 1980 election.
And, as noted later, there have been many - most notably the Catholic Church- that have been against all abortion for much longer. Ironically (townie can give a ruling), much of Protestant evangelicalism’s approval of abortion was in part to set it apart from Catholicism (as many fundamentalist Christians, especially in the South, didn’t/don’t consider Catholics to be Christian).
Seeing that their political power wasn’t enough on their own, they adopted anti-abortion issues to bring in Catholics and leveraged Anita Bryant’s campaign against the LGBTQ community to bring in a broader coalition.