Evangelical opposition to abortion was initially uncertain and politically constructed

Evidence

Though late to the ERA, Schlafly was already concerned about abortion in 1972, the year before Roe v. Wade, in part because she was Catholic. Catholics had a long history of condemning abortion, even when women’s lives were at stake. Some fundamentalist pastors agreed, though they weren’t eager to cooperate with Catholics on the issue. But most evangelicals were far less certain. The Bible didn’t offer specific advice on the topic. Many evangelicals disapproved of “abortion-on-demand,” but not in the case of rape or incest, where fetal abnormalities were present, or when a woman’s life was at risk. In 1968, Christianity Today considered the question of therapeutic abortion—was it a blessing, or murder? They gave no definitive answer. As late as 1971, the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution urging states to expand access to abortion. But with the liberalization of abortion laws, and as abortion proponents began to frame the issue in terms of women controlling their reproduction, evangelicals started to reconsider their position. In 1973, Roe v. Wade—and the rising popularity of abortion in its wake—helped force the issue, but even then, evangelical mobilization was not immediate. Only in time, as abortion became more closely linked to feminism and the sexual revolution, did evangelicals begin to frame it not as a difficult moral choice, but rather as an assault on women’s God-given role, on the family, and on Christian America itself. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 160

Categorization

• XREF: Directly counters the common assumption that abortion opposition was a longstanding evangelical commitment — connects to the broader book thesis that the political identity was manufactured, not timeless. — connects to: Christianity’s ensoulment doctrine made abortion a crime against the fetus; Abortion was not a key evangelical voting issue before 1979. — Andrew L. Whitehead; Samuel L. Perry, Taking America Back for God, 246; Evangelicals frame abortion as the slavery of their generation — Andrew L. Whitehead; Samuel L. Perry, Taking America Back for God, 248 (+31 more)
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: exactly what date and mechanism flipped the SBC and Christianity Today positions — the chapter gives the arc but a precise timeline would sharpen the continuity argument.