Samantha Bee Obliterates the Right for Exploiting Abortion Rights for Political Gain
In a fascinating followup to her look at the origins of the religious right last week, Samantha Bee used this week's "Full Frontal" to investigate how the movement set its sights on abortion as a key issue.
As it turns out, the leaders of the movement cynically decided to focus on abortion, a topic they figured they could milk for political attention. To help spread the word, they got help from Frank Schaeffer, who was an up-and-coming filmmaker at the time.
“One of the things that I did back in the day when I was young was help found, start, begin what became known as the ‘pro-life movement.’ It is the single greatest regret of my life," Schaeffer said. He describes how he helped create a film series titled "Whatever Happened to the Human Race," which prominently featured his father, Francis Schaeffer, and future Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Coop. The film, a scary piece of propaganda Bee hilariously labels “Abortion Satyricon,” was then peddled all around.
But most evangelical leaders weren’t much interested in getting involved. Schaeffer goes on to describe how prominent members of the GOP like Jack Kemp and Bob Dole helped secure the evangelical buy-in. Thus, they created the huge resistance to a perfectly legal issue that we still have to contend with today.
Check out the segment below.
