Supreme Court Decides Roe v. Wade, Triggering Conservative Backlash and Mobilization

The U.S. Supreme Court decides Roe v. Wade, establishing constitutional right to abortion and instantly creating a rallying point for grassroots anti-feminist and anti-abortion organizing that will transform American politics and provide the social issue dimension needed to fuse economic conservatives with religious voters. While immediate political impact takes time to develop, Nellie Gray organizes the first March for Life in October 1973, with 20,000 Americans protesting on the capitol steps on January 22, 1974, marking the decision’s first anniversary. The abortion backlash enables Paul Weyrich and other conservative strategists to forge alliances between economic conservatives (Heritage, Business Roundtable, corporate donors) and religious conservatives (evangelicals, Catholics), creating the broad coalition that neither group could achieve alone. Grassroots anti-abortion activists, led by figures including Phyllis Schlafly, successfully sideline moderate “Rockefeller Republicans” within the party, while common ground between evangelical Christians and conservative Catholics over abortion provides crucial voting bloc that will deliver Reagan’s 1980 landslide victory. An embittered religious Right becomes the bedrock of the conservative coalition, taking control of the Republican Party within a decade. The timing - just one month before Heritage Foundation’s founding (February 1973) - demonstrates how social issues and economic issues combine to enable conservative movement success, providing the grassroots energy and moral framework that complements corporate funding and elite coordination.