The Progressive Roots of the Pro-Life Movement
At The Atlantic, Emma Green writes about a new book from scholar Daniel K. Williams, which takes a new look at the pro-life movement before the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. In Defenders of the Unborn, Williams argues that although Catholics lead the charge against abortion, their arguments were often framed in liberal ideology. “The debate about abortion was a conflict over gender, even though most pro-lifers of the late 1960s and early 1970s had been slow to recognize this fact,” Williams writes in his book. “It was not a conflict of men against women, as some pro-choicers believed; instead, it was a debate between two different groups of women.”