New book explores impact of money on Antiabortion politics
Mary Ziegler makes another important contribution to abortion rights literature
That there is money in abortion politics is a given for anyone who has been involved on either side. A new book from Mary Ziegler, a prominent abortion rights researcher, shows how that money has led to the downfall of the Republican establishment.
In Dollars for Life: The Anti-Abortion Movement and the Fall of the Republican Establishment, Ziegler traces the antiabortion movement’s history from the era of Roe v. Wade up through the Reagan Revolution and ending with the Trump and Biden administrations. The book raises important questions about the role finances play in political campaigns and the possible ethical problems unlimited spending will cause for American elections.
Ziegler is one of the foremost experts on reproductive law and her explanation of how the judiciary was transformed after Roe is fascinating. Antiabortion groups rallied around the idea that we had to stop activist judges from reshaping the country into being more liberal. Much of this had to do with the progressive victories brought on by the Warren Court, which expanded legal protections to minorities, the criminally accused, secular groups and women.
The court system may be the most ignored or misunderstood branch of government. Liberal lawyers attempted to explain the reasons for decades why having judges like Louis Brandeis or William Douglas would empower their side. They were unsuccessful in doing so. It was never an issue that galvanized the left, with the exception of those who were ardently pro-choice when there was an expected Supreme Court opening.
Ziegler’s research explains how Robert Bork’s nomination went and how various judges were received by the Senate when it considered replacements. The legal primer explains how the court was transformed into the conservative supermajority it was today. It also shows that Republicans wanted to exploit the abortion issue to rally evangelical voters while secretly thinking that nothing could ever happen realistically to end the protections of Roe.
The legal history of reproductive rights is fascinating. Margaret Sanger had tried in the 1930s to get Congress to pass protections for birth control. When she failed, she described those in the Senate as, “Cowards.”
Her lawyers told her to fight for reproductive rights within the court systems. That became the strategy of pioneering attorneys like Harriet Pilpel, with the final result coming with Griswold v. Connecticut, which granted the right of privacy and protected access to birth control. That was the basis for Roe.
After the landmark decision in 1973, the lawyers went from being on the offensive to the defensive position. Year after year, antiabortion think tanks developed laws that incrementally chipped away at abortion protections. As the judiciary grew more conservative, those laws increasingly were upheld. Now that the decision is completely overturned, outright bans will take place in some areas while incremental attacks may happen elsewhere.
Ziegler’s other major contribution to our discussion with this book is the challenge to unlimited campaign spending. After the Citizens United v. FEC decision in 2010, corporations had far greater protections for donating money to political candidates that they support. Other authors have raised the issue that we shouldn’t treat corporations as people. John McWhorter, a prominent Black linguist, criticized the “woke” mentality for pressuring corporations to take a position on social justice. To him, it was dangerous to treat business entities as people. Ziegler’s book examines these points from the lens of feminism.
With the lack of oversight and regulations, antiabortion groups have been able to polarize the Republican electorate. It’s worrisome that we get candidates like Doug Mastriano, who beat a far more qualified candidate within the Republican gubernatorial primary in Pennsylvania. Polarization has also hurt the Democratic Party, including many within the abortion rights movement who may want greater police protection and funding and oppose socialistic policies. To hold such positions is seen as impure or portrayed as intolerant by the purists on the left. That aspect isn’t explored in Ziegler’s book, but it would be a fair examination to show how one polarized party will lead to the other one doing the same.