"Some supporters of abortion rights, including, most prominently, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, have claimed that the Roe decision was premature and a political mistake. Roe v. Wade “halted a political process that was moving in a reform direction and thereby . . . prolonged divisiveness and deferred stable settlement of the issue.” Opposition to Roe helped energize the conservative religious and social movements of the 1970s and 1980s, which argued that an unelected judiciary was imposing its personal (and immortal) views and casting aside those of democratically elected state governments. These conservative social and religious movements eventually found a home in the Republican Party; they helped elect Ronald Reagan to the presidency and helped many other pro-life candidates gain political office. In the years following Roe, both Congress and state legislatures passed a series of laws that repeatedly attempted to water down and limit abortion rights. As Roe energized pro-life conservative social movements, it simultaneously demobilized social movement support for abortion rights. Instead of pressing for abortion reform in the states and at the national level, pro-choice advocates were constantly placed on the defensive and repeatedly turned to the courts for protection. Reliance on the courts, in turn, diverted political energy away from forming a mass political movement for abortion rights that could successfully counter the burgeoning pro-life movement."