America's Descent into Fascism Can Be Blamed on This Little Fellow Here
Jerry Falwell's decision to politicize abortion was a 'seminal' moment for the zygote
Hey there, little fellow! Wave!
Actually, you can’t. Forming over the course of a couple of days after fertilization, the zygote phase, which is technically the beginning of the unseen wonders that make life, lasts only about four days before the complex little tyke sets off on its first trip. Having fun with math, division in particular, the little wonder makes its way down the fallopian tube.
Arriving at its destination, the uterus, our former zygote, sets off on the ultimate journey of all by becoming an embryo — which eventually becomes all of us currently present on this Earth. All of us were this first. The result of a romantic dinner, a chance meeting, or planned for months, the complicated and extremely delicate process of creating human beings is truly a miracle. It is the protection of this miracle that turned our nation toward fascism.
Abortion is legal
On January 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court struck a Texas ban on abortion. With this 7–2 decision, known famously as Roe v. Wade, the United States abortion was legal for all. While there was a lot of opposition to legalizing abortion, understanding who was against it then cannot be determined by who it is today. Many evangelicals were actually not so upset about abortion. They viewed the matter as a “Catholic issue.” What kept the white sheets and Confederate flags of the evangelicals starched and pressed was not abortion but racial segregation.
White evangelicals in the 1970s did not mobilize against Roe v. Wade, which they considered a Catholic issue. They organized instead to defend racial segregation in evangelical institutions, including Bob Jones University (The Religious Right and the Abortion Myth).
Conservatives and evangelicals viewed any government “ban” as federal encroachment on the rights of the people. Setting aside that many evangelicals were (are) racist, their biggest complaint with desegregation was that it was forced upon them, thus quashing their state rights. Abortion was such a non-issue for many Southern evangelicals and Baptists that in 1971, the Southern Baptist Convention called for the legalization of abortion and then reaffirmed that decision in 1974 and 1976 — after Roe was passed.
Racism, however, was losing its hold on the Southern electorate. It was becoming more challenging to ride an anti-Black ticket into political office openly. This was when the two architects of modern American fascism sent our country down a path that 45 years later would bring us to the brink of a genuine fascist takeover. Paul Weyrich founded the Religious Right, and Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority. Both of them were obsessed with protecting racially segregated universities, Bob Jones University and Falwell’s own Liberty University, from IRS penalties.
Weyrich’s genius, however, lay in his understanding that racism — the defense of racial segregation — was not likely to energize grassroots evangelical voters. So he, Falwell and others deftly flipped the script. Instead of the Religious Right mobilizing in defense of segregation, evangelical leaders in the late 1970s decried government intrusion into their affairs as an assault on religious freedom, thereby writing a page for the modern Republican Party playbook, used shamelessly in the Hobby Lobby and the Masterpiece Cakeshop cases (The Religious Right and the Abortion Myth).
The notion of “religious freedom,” too, was, for many Americans in the 1970s, something they struggled to understand. Christians in the United States were not complaining about real or imagined federal oppression of their religion. The fact that Weyrich, Falwell, and others were trying to use religious oppression to justify their greed and racism was not catching on.
It wouldn’t be until 1978 that Jerry Falwell would write his first sermon against abortion. Having watched in the 1978 mid-terms as four long-time Democrats in swing states were so unceremoniously upset by anti-abortion newcomer Republicans, Jerry Falwell realized that he had to become the most anti-abortion minister in America to keep his push for segregation alive. Overnight, the Moral Majority became the face of the anti-abortion movement.
Weyrich had finally landed on an issue — abortion — that could mobilize grassroots evangelicals. Now, Falwell and other leaders of the Religious Right had a “respectable” issue, opposition to abortion, one that would energize white evangelicals — and, not incidentally, divert attention from the real origins of their movement (The Religious Right and the Abortion Myth).
Ronald Reagan made no mention of abortion during his run for office, and the hysteria that would become the anti-abortion movement would not take hold until the mid to late 1980s. Falwell and others used the opposition to abortion by a smaller, more passionate minority to empower their movements for race segregation in religious institutions. By joining the two movements, Falwell invigorated his segregation message while enjoying the righteousness of the pro-life movement.
As we have seen, the religious right has made a habit of collecting hot-button social issues and incorporating them under the umbrella of anti-abortion, which now is the home for systemic racism against Blacks and immigrants, anti-LGBTQ, pro-gun, “deep state” and more. The Moral Majority, as it is manifested in Falwell’s Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, and the religious right, in general, is the breeding ground for the rise of American fascism, and it was opposition to abortion that made them the most powerful voting bloc in the country. The tolerance of Trump is because they believed he would ultimately ban abortion. All of his other faults were acceptable.
And so it goes now: each time there is a loss of enthusiasm for the movement, right-wingers create a new social issue to slip under the movement’s umbrella. With each newly added “cause,” the ideal America becomes ever more rigid and unforgiving. America’s fascism becomes more encompassing, and the tent with fascists from diverse walks of life is ever larger.