How the religious right became anti-abortion

In the 1970s, evangelicals became involved in U.S. politics — but being anti-abortion wasn't in their original agenda.

Transcript

00:00It is my profound honor to be the first president in history to attend the March for Life.

00:18You cannot win the election if you don't get a substantial number of evangelical voters,

00:26or it's very difficult.

00:30The March for Life is a message to the world.

00:36It is a message to all of humanity.

00:42It is a message to all of humanity.

00:45It is a message to all of humanity.

00:51The incident that probably did more than anything else to galvanize evangelical interest in politics

00:57and involvement in politics came when Nixon instructed the IRS to cancel the

01:03tax exemption of segregated schools, particularly in the South. And that took

01:09several years to take hold, but by 1976 it was finalized and those schools lost

01:15their tax exemption. Racism was a major factor in the formation of the

01:20segregated schools. The threats against the segregated schools generated a great

01:25deal of furor among people who had supported them.

01:51The Roe versus Wade decision of legalizing abortion, that had actually

01:59not been a big issue with evangelicals. The Southern Baptist Convention had said

02:03on a number of occasions that they thought it was a reasonable decision, a

02:07reasonable right that should be allowed. The issue of abortion is often given

02:11credit for being a catalyzing issue for bringing the religious right together,

02:18really for bringing it in into being. And it played a significant role, but it was

02:24more a matter of providing an issue that many evangelicals could agree on, and

02:28that helped pull the religious right together, or serve to bring people

02:34together to say, this is terrible, we need to have some kind of political force to

02:38deal with that.

02:39I know that you can't endorse me, but I only brought that up because I want you

03:02to know that I endorse you, and what you are doing.

03:09It's comforting to be with a close friend.

03:30We ask that you would bestow upon our president the wisdom necessary to lead

03:37this great nation.

03:38Unborn children have never had a stronger defender in the White House.

03:57I'm very pro-choice.

04:06Donald Trump, it's kind of amazing because he was able to get away with

04:11winning their support. I think President Trump has a talent for flexibility. If he

04:20believes that a group that he is speaking to wants to hear something, he

04:24will say it for their benefit to please them. If he goes to another group with

04:29quite different views, he's able to do the same thing with them.