Abortion, Religious Freedom, and Catholic Politics

-Master historian James Hitchcock turns his eye in this timely volume to the 2016 Presidential contest and how abortion might affect it. Hitchcock is mainly interested in how, since Roe vs. Wade, abortion as a political issue (including within that term the politics of judicial appointments) has dramatically affected Catholics' political behavior. Given the size of the Catholic vote, that drama has in turn contributed to a realignment of American politics....Hitchcock traces the Catholic political narrative with painstaking attention to the primary sources, and ingeniously shows how the Catholic far right mirrors, in some interesting ways, the Catholic left's approach to the politics of abortion. His analysis and judgments are invariably insightful, and sound.- --Gerard V. Bradley, University of Notre Dame Master historian James Hitchcock turns his eye in this timely volume to the 2016 Presidential contest and how abortion might affect it. Hitchcock is mainly interested in how, since Roe vs. Wade, abortion as a political issue (including within that term the politics of judicial appointments) has dramatically affected Catholics' political behavior. Given the size of the Catholic vote, that drama has in turn contributed to a realignment of American politics....Hitchcock traces the Catholic political narrative with painstaking attention to the primary sources, and ingeniously shows how the Catholic far right mirrors, in some interesting ways, the Catholic left's approach to the politics of abortion. His analysis and judgments are invariably insightful, and sound. --Gerard V. Bradley, University of Notre Dame