And you know what abortion was not? A religious issue. Conservative Christians in the United States today act as if they always opposed abortion, but they did not. Catholics didn't. Evangelicals didn't. Mainline Protestants didn't.

Religious attempts to prohibit abortion did not become significant until the late 20th century. In the 1970s, the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution about abortion. Guess what they said?

Don't make abortion a crime. We're okay with it in many circumstances. The decision is between a woman and her God.

Organized religious opposition to abortion didn't kick off until Jerry Falwell's The Moral Majority got going strong in the 1980s. Until Falwell, conservative Christians were not more likely than other Americans to oppose abortion.

Falwell made abortion and LBGTQ issues his big rallying cry in a quest for political influence and power.

I guess it worked.