Overview
- Offers an in-depth analysis of the loyalty that developed between the right-to-life movement and the Reagan administration
- Explores the various factions within this movement during the 1980s, differentiating between the Religious Right, the Catholic Church, pro-life Republican politicians and pro-life organizations
- Shows how political access transformed the right-to-life cause and how this strategy continued to shape these organizations’ alliance with the Republican Party for decades
Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements (PSHSM)
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About this book
This book offers a political, ideological, and social history of the national right-to-life movement in the 1980s under President Ronald Reagan. It analyzes anti-abortion engagement with the legislative, judicial, and executive branches, and offers what is frequently a narrative of disappointment and factionalism. The chapters explore pro-life responses to Supreme Court vacancies, attempts to pass a constitutional amendment, and broader legislative and bureaucratic strategies, including successful campaigns against international and domestic family planning programs. The book suggests that the 1980s transformed the anti-abortion cause, limiting the types of ideas and approaches possible at a national level. Although the movement later claimed Reagan as a "pro-life hero," while he was President right-to-lifers continuously struggled with the gap between his words and deeds. They also had a fraught relationship with the broader Republican Party. This book charts the political education of right-to-lifers, offering insights into social movement activism and conservatism in the late twentieth century.
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Keywords
Table of contents (7 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Prudence Flowers is a lecturer at Flinders University, Australia. She teaches and researches United States history. She has published on first-wave feminism and the temperance movement in the late nineteenth century and on anti-abortion activism in the 1970s and 1980s.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The Right-to-Life Movement, the Reagan Administration, and the Politics of Abortion
Authors: Prudence Flowers
Series Title: Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01707-1
Publisher: Palgrave Pivot Cham
eBook Packages: History, History (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-01706-4Published: 13 November 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-01707-1Published: 03 November 2018
Series ISSN: 2634-6559
Series E-ISSN: 2634-6567
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XVIII, 160
Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations, 1 illustrations in colour
Topics: US History, Modern History, Social History, Political History, Women's Studies