The Republican Partys platform in 980 said that we affirm our support of a constitutional amendment to restore protection of the right to life for unborn children. We also support the Congressional efforts to restrict the use of taxpayers dollars for abortion. To truly understand where modern day anti-choice rhetoric originated, one must look at Ronald Reagans anti-choice rhetoric. Ronald Reagan was the first American president to come out strongly against abortion. He vehemently defended his anti-choice attitude, and he also gave the anti-choice movement legitimacy. When speaking about abortion, Reagans language was impassioned and moralistic, which was a way Americans were not typically used to hearing a president talk about such a subject. Typically, language and rhetoric surrounding abortion avoided any direct or harsh language so as to not upset voters. Reagan did not shy away from saying that abortion was taking a human life, unlike his fellow Republican predecessors who straddled the fence on abortion. Reagan understood what vernacular could do to mobilize not only the people in the United States, but also Congress. Reagans goal in the abortion debate was to attempt to push through a constitutional amendment, but in his first couple of years in the Oval Office, Reagan failed to do anything of the sort. He and his team in the White House were preoccupied with economic concerns, like creating Reaganomics, to put any meaningful action into the abortion debate. In the 982 midterms, the Republicans lost twenty-six seats in the House of Representatives. Part of this devastating loss of control of the House was due to the inaction on abortion in the White House. Moving into his second term as President, though, Reagans chances of making meaningful
change in the anti-choice sphere of legislation seemed less than stellar because the Republicans had lost the majority in the Senate. With this knowledge, Reagan decided to turn his anti-choice efforts elsewhere, Federal benches.
One of the many perks of being the President of the United States is being able to nominate, and essentially choose, judges that will sit on the Federal Court benches. Typically, this is a partisan effort, meaning that Democrats nominate judges who have a history of handing down verdicts that align with the Democratic Party, and Republicans will do the same, except with judges who align more with the Republican Party. Reagans strategy in order to nominate judges was to put them through rigorous and ideological screening processes such as asking the judges what they would rule in hypothetical abortion cases. Specifically, the Reagan administration was looking for judges who opposed judicial decisions permitting abortions and affirmative action. The reason Ronald Reagan wanted to pack the federal courts was so that he could potentially push through restrictive regulations on abortion. If those restrictions were taken all the way to federal court, it would be the judges that he had carefully selected through this meticulous process who would be the ones hearing the case. This would allow Reagan to make good on his promises to the anti-choice Americans who wanted to see some sort of restrictions on abortion. Since the judges had been asked by Reagans staff what they would rule in those types of cases before they had even been nominated, the Reagan administration was confident that his restrictions would hold up in court. If Congress would not pass any antiabortion measures, then Reagan would do it his own way- through the courts.