Why is the south the epicenter of anti-abortion fervor?

Not so long ago, laws governing abortion in Massachusetts and Rhode Island were far more restrictive than those in the Deep South, as state legislators throughout New England regularly banned the procedure, no matter the circumstances, during the 1960s and 70s.

Nowadays, however, the American South represents a hub of anti-abortion fervor, home to a series of laws and regulations that have eroded Roe v. Wade, as liberal states in the Northeast and elsewhere have enacted laws to codify that landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision.

How that regional reversal came to pass touches on demographic and ideological shifts, as well as a political environment in which few governors or state legislators anywhere claim to be moderates on the issue.

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