Two years before the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, the largest Protestant group in the United States made a powerful statement on abortion.

The Southern Baptist Convention wanted to make it legal.

The members of the convention listed in a 1971 resolution when it should be allowed: “rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother.”

Three years later, they affirmed that statement and, recognizing the complexities of contemporary society, asked for “God’s guidance through prayer and study in order to bring about solutions to continuing abortion problems in our society.”

By 1980, the middle ground was gone. The Southern Baptists now supported a U.S. constitutional amendment banning abortion except to save a mother’s life.

That reversal was a marker in the rise of the politically potent Christian Right, for which many say abortion has become a proxy for bigger divides in American culture.

In the past decade, support for or against abortion has become a litmus test for politicians. And conservative lawmakers in many states have been increasingly successful in passing restrictions.

Still, the majority of Americans’ views on abortion have changed little since the mid-1970s.

In 1975, just two years after Roe v. Wade, 21 percent in the United States wanted abortion legal under any circumstance, 54 percent wanted it legal under certain circumstances, and 22 percent of Americans wanted it to be illegal in all circumstances, according to the Gallup poll.

In 2011, the statistics are not much different: 26 percent want it legal under any circumstance, 51 percent want it legal under certain circumstances, and 20 percent favor illegal always.

Conservative push

The growth in the anti-abortion movement among Protestant religions, such as the Southern Baptists, happened against a backdrop of growing conservative movement within the churches.

Concerns about moral values during the sexual revolution, along with the later unease over the economic crisis in 1979 through 1981, galvanized evangelical leaders into action, said the Rev. George Grant of Parish Presbyterian Church in Franklin.

“There was a great deal of alarm about the future of our world,” he said.

Around the same time, a group of Southern Baptist ministers, worried that their denomination had become too liberal, started what became known as the Battle for the Bible. They’d eventually take over the denomination, leading it to be more theologically and politically conservative.

The conservative Protestant groups brought muscle to what, before then, had largely been a fight waged by the Roman Catholic Church.

The battle shows no sign of ending soon, said Vanessa Beasley, associate professor of communications studies at Vanderbilt University. That’s because for more than three decades, the anti-abortion platform has worked in politics as a fundraising and campaign strategy.