Fetal Politics

The anti-abortion campaign in the USA is gaining momentum with the prospect that the Roe v. Wade decision may be overturned. This book traces the evolution of the anti-abortion lobby, how it became so influential in Republican politics, andthe splits that have recently emerged in its ranks. McKeegan shows how in the early 1970s a group of young Republican activists - including Howard Philips, Paul Weyrich, Richard Viguerie and Pat Buchanan - sought to forge a new coalition out of single-issue constituencies. They succeeded in galvanizing Protestant Fundamentalist opinion and in drawing anti-abortion Catholics away from the Democrats, wrested control of the Republican platform from the moderates and helped Reagan to sweep into power with a landslide. Under Reagan, a campaign of bureaucratic harrassment and obstruction was waged against family-planning agenices. However, these tactics soon fell foul of Congress, and alienated significant sectors of the younger population. Republican party officials began to sense that an extreme anti-abortion stance could be an electoral liability and sought to moderate the party's attitude.
Meanwhile splits have begun to develop in the anti-abortion front itself. As McKeegan justly observes, the early 1990s are a critical period for abortion politics in the USA.