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I am attempting in this blog to add a little light to the issue of abortion so prominent in this and all elections, in contrast to the heat it usually generates.

Most evangelical Christians insist that the primary reason they are supporting Donald Trump is because they don’t want “pro-abortion” Hillary Clinton to appoint the next Supreme Court Justice(s).

But the way they talk about her and abortion shows quite clearly that they are either uninformed or hypocritical about both abortion and Hillary.

Let’s hope it is the former, as bad as that is, because, if it’s the latter, evangelicals have more serious moral issues to worry about than abortion.

First of all, evangelicals talk as if legal abortion in the U.S. began with the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Before 1973, abortion laws were solely in the hands of the states, and they were as diverse as the states themselves.

In thirty one (31) states abortion was illegal across the board. In thirteen (13) states it was legal in cases where there was a danger to a woman’s health, rape, incest, or a likely abnormality of the fetus. In one (1) state it was legal only in the case of rape, in two (2) states it was legal only in the case of endangerment to the mother’s health, and in three (3) states it was legal upon request.

This was the historical context for Roe v. Wade, making it clear that it was not the catalyst for legalized abortion in the country as evangelicals claim. In truth, before the decision the legality and practice was uneven, erratic, and in many cases arbitrary because of negative public opinion.

What Roe v. Wade did was to establish a legal framework of uniformity among states regarding access to abortion. Here are the three actual sections of the ruling:

(a) For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first trimester, the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman’s attending physician.

(b) For the stage subsequent to approximately the end of the first trimester, the State, in promoting its interest in the health of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health.

(c) For the stage subsequent to viability, the State in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.

Not only was this decision not the beginning of legal abortion in the U.S., an honest reading of it leaves no doubt that it did not open the door to often made criticism that it legalized “abortion on demand.”

What it did was to give women the right to choose to have an abortion during the first three months, leaving the states with the legal right thereafter to impose reasonable limits so long as state law did not interfere with the right of a woman to choose during the first trimester.

In addition, the justices made it clear that they were aware of and sensitive to the strong emotions attending to this issue on both sides. Writing for the majority, Justice Harry Blachmun said in the opening paragraphs of the opinion:

“We forthwith acknowledge our awareness of the sensitive and emotional nature of the abortion controversy, of the vigorous opposing views, even among physicians, and of the deep and seemingly absolute convictions that the subject inspires. One’s philosophy, one’s experiences, one’s exposure to the raw edges of human existence, one’s religious training, one’s attitudes toward life and family and their values, and the moral standards one establishes and seeks to observe, are all likely to influence and to color one’s thinking and conclusions about abortion.”

I think any reasonable person would admit that this statement underscores the fact that the majority justices were very aware of the moral/ethical aspects of their decision and were seeking to do the right thing under the law.

There is, then, no justification for impugning the integrity or moral character of the majority of the justices who decided Roe v. Wade.

Moreover, their decision reflects what most Americans today believe about abortion. They take the position that was, ironically, first articulated by former President Bill Clinton who said: “Abortion should not only be safe and legal, it should be rare.”

To summarize, then, what Roe v. Wade actually did and nothing more was this: It established a uniform right of a woman to make the choice for herself in the first three months of pregnancy. What can be done legally thereafter depends on the laws of the state where a woman lives.

Those state laws continue to vary today the same way they did before the Roe v. Wade ruling.

It seems to me that instead of Roe v. Wade being the moral apocalypse evangelicals have made of it, it in truth could and should serve as a basis for reasonable people finding common ground as we seek to balance moral beliefs with constitutional rights.

But that assumes people are willing to take the facts about the history of legalized abortion seriously and what Roe v. Wade actually says instead of distorting both, or worse, being intentionally dishonest about them.

Sadly, we have seen a lot of the latter, especially in regard to what is called “late term abortions,” or abortions after 20 weeks, that many evangelicals insist Hillary Clinton favors.

We will explore that subject and Hillary’s position on it in my next blog.