The Religious Right fabricated an origin myth linking its birth to Roe v. Wade

Evidence

The Religious Right’s most cherished and durable myth is its myth of origins. According to this well-rehearsed narrative, articulated by Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and countless others, evangelical leaders were shaken out of their political complacency by the United States Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision of January 22, 1973. … The Supreme Court had just made a decision by a seven-to-two margin that would legalize the killing of millions of unborn children, … Falwell wrote. “I sat there staring at the Roe v. Wade story growing more and more fearful of the consequences of the Supreme Court’s act and wondering why so few voices had been raised against it.” This myth of origins has Falwell and other evangelical leaders emerging like mollusks out of their apolitical stupor to fight the moral outrage of legalized abortion. — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 87

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Directly relevant to the imodesty/panic scholarship and the sacrifice framing — a manufactured origin story used by a political movement to legitimate itself echoes how moral panics retroactively construct causal narratives.
• XREF: connects to: Leading evangelicals initially endorsed Roe as a church-state separation victory — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 92; Early Moral Majority insiders confirm abortion was not its founding issue — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 113; The Religious Right’s abortion politics predate Roe and were chosen for strategic reasons — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 222 (+14 more)

Related

• The Religious Right’s founding narrative claims Roe v. Wade roused evangelicals from political passivity (similarity 0.94)
• The abortion myth obscures the segregationist origins of evangelical activism. (similarity 0.90)
• The Religious Right’s abortion politics predate Roe and were chosen for strategic reasons (similarity 0.89)
• Early Moral Majority insiders confirm abortion was not its founding issue (similarity 0.88)
• Abortion was not a key evangelical voting issue before 1979. (similarity 0.85)
• The Religious Right adopted abortion only after racial segregation failed to rally voters (similarity 0.85)
• The Religious Right’s origins lay in defending racial segregation, not opposing abortion (similarity 0.85)
• Evangelicals adopted anti-abortion politics six years after Roe for political gain (similarity 0.84)
• Confronting the abortion myth could reorient the whole evangelical agenda (similarity 0.84)
• Falwell did not preach against abortion until five years after Roe (similarity 0.83)
• Some evangelicals sincerely oppose abortion regardless of their movement’s origins (similarity 0.83)
• The religious right’s founding coalition was initially indifferent to abortion. (similarity 0.83)
• Leading evangelicals initially endorsed Roe as a church-state separation victory (similarity 0.83)
• The New Right founders launched with grievances unrelated to abortion (similarity 0.82)
• Abortion failed for years to mobilize evangelicals before the IRS ruling (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Forced desegregation of Christian schools, not abortion, sparked the Christian Right #corroborates (0.90) — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 530
• The Religious Right began as reaction to IRS desegregation of Christian schools. #corroborates (0.90) — Andrew L. Whitehead; Samuel L. Perry, Taking America Back for God, 312
• Evangelical opposition to abortion was initially uncertain and politically constructed #corroborates (0.88) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 160
• A leading Southern Baptist fundamentalist publicly supported Roe v. Wade in 1973 #corroborates (0.88) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 91
• Proposed rallying issues for the Religious Right included gay rights before abortion #corroborates (0.85) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 120
• Falwell did not preach against abortion until five years after Roe #corroborates (0.85) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 96
• The Religious Right needed a rallying issue besides racial segregation #corroborates (0.82) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 119
• Unorganized evangelicals voted for Carter before the Religious Right existed #corroborates (0.80) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 83
• Origin myths function as political arguments about power, not historical records #corroborates (0.78) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 132