Anti-abortion campaigners in the US will tell you their crusade is about the sanctity of life. But really it is about upholding a singularly unhealthy tendency in American public life - the exploitation of a divisive social and ethical issue to further the ambitions of a single political party whose agenda doesn't necessarily reflect the interests of the anti-abortion campaigners at all.Since 1973, when the Supreme Court handed down its Roe v Wade ruling and asserted that women have a constitutional right to choose to end an unwanted pregnancy, abortion has been the Republican Party's best tool for enlisting grass-roots support, particularly among evangelical Christians.
At the time, the Republican party was broken - unable to muster a majority in either house in Congress and beleaguered by the Watergate scandal that was to prove Nixon's undoing. Key to its recovery was a new wave of grass-roots organising in conservative churches. Overturning Roe v Wade became a mantra for this movement.
At almost every turn, however, the anti-abortion campaigners have had reason to be disappointed. Roe v Wade remains on the statute books. Ronald Reagan tinkered with the abortion laws, as George Bush has done since, but fell far short of grass-roots expectations.
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