As other social issues fade, the abortion debate still rages

When President Trump speaks to the March for Life from the Rose Garden Friday — the administration has billed him as “the first sitting president to address the” major antiabortion event “from the White House live via satellite” — it will mark a new chapter in American social conservatism.

Many of the issues that gave rise to the Religious Right have been settled (there is no longer much pushback against gay marriage) or remain stalled even if public opinion polls still capture significant support for socially conservative positions (reinstating school prayer).

Yet abortion remains a hotly contested issue 45 years after the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Roe v. Wade. The March for Life has been an annual protest against the ruling that dissenting Justice Byron White described as an “exercise of raw judicial power” and the anti-abortion activists who will hear Trump speak regard as an injustice against millions of unborn children.

The public is still split on abortion, with 49 percent self-described to Gallup last year as “pro-choice” versus 46 percent “pro-life.” The poll has recorded small pro-life majorities in the past decade. Support for gay marriage, by contrast, has exploded from 27 percent in 1996 to 64 percent in 2017.

New bans on abortion after 20 weeks are being enacted. The Supreme Court's 1992 Casey v. Planned Parenthood decision, a major disappointment at the time to social conservatives who hoped it would overturn Roe, actually expandedthe permissible range of abortion restrictions.