For decades, neither side in the abortion debate had to test its position in the democratic arena. The Supreme Court in 1973 had settled it: the Constitution guaranteed a right to an abortion.
But now, in a post-Roe America, opponents of abortion rights must convince public majorities that the procedure must be severely restricted or banned entirely. In conservative Kansas, the pro-life movement was decisively defeated when nearly 60% of voters chose to uphold abortion rights as enumerated in the state constitution.
The conflict over abortion likely will take years to play out as voters, state by state, cast ballots in legislative elections or public referenda. But one important aspect is already coming into focus. That is, now that the possibility of criminalizing abortions has moved out of the abstract, ambivalent Americans may recoil at laws aimed at imprisoning doctors or fencing women into their home states by punishing them for traveling to places where abortion is legal.
Prohibitions – whether on alcohol, narcotics or reproductive freedom – may be impossible to enforce out of an array or moral and practical considerations. In this episode of History As It Happens, Georgetown historian Michael Kazin, an expert on American political and social movements, compares today’s conservative Christian movement to outlaw abortion to the temperance crusaders of the 19th and 20th centuries, armies of Christian evangelists who convinced a large majority of voters to outlaw booze in the 18th Amendment.
“Images of people getting arrested for putting something in their bodies – liquor – was something Americans didn’t like in the 1920s. It proved unenforceable. A parallel is already happening with abortion, with stories like the terrible story on the 10-year-old [rape victim] in Ohio who had to go to Indiana to get an abortion. And now she wouldn’t be able to get it in Indiana either, because Indiana just banned abortion,” said Mr. Kazin, the author of “What It Took To Win: A History of the Democratic Party.”
SEE ALSO: History As It Happens: Abortion before Roe
Prior to Prohibition, many Americans could relate to the temperance crusaders as alcoholism was a serious problem, Mr. Kazin said. Saloons proliferated, and it was not illegal to sell booze to children. But once people witnessed the harsh and ultimately fruitless tactics that had to be taken to stop the manufacture and sale of alcohol, the Prohibitionists saw their reputations ruined.
Listen to the full conversation with Michael Kazin by downloading this episode of History As It Happens.
