The Warden

The politics of abortion and gay rights look very different at both the mass and elite levels. The main change on the abortion issue is the greater extent to which the conflict has become partisan since it reached the national agenda in the early 1970s. That change has occurred via shifts in both parties. Initially many prominent Democrats including Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden, Jesse Jackson, Dick Gephardt and Tip O’Neill were pro-life while well-known Republicans including Ronald Reagan and both Presidents Bush took more liberal stands. Republican voters were more pro-choice than Democrats until the mid-1980s. With the incorporation of feminists in the Democratic coalition and the religious right in the GOP many politicians changed their stands. Among voters the alignment between party identification and abortion views has gradually increased as well. Yet while abortion has become an increasingly partisan issue, overall attitudes regarding the topic and public policy have been quite stable.