![](https://media.salon.com/2022/12/robert-schenck-1245471481.jpg)
The Rev. Robert Schenck, who was once a prominent anti-abortion activist, testified before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday that he and his fellow conservative Christians made a Faustian bargain with the Republican Party as part of their quest to overturn Roe v. Wade.
During his testimony, Schenck described a meeting he and his fellow evangelicals had with Republican operatives in which they were told that, in order to get what they wanted with Roe, they would have to accept and promote an entire package of right-wing policies that they otherwise might have found objectionable.
In that meeting that I participated in, the conversation went something like this: 'You guys want Roe v. Wade overturned, we can do that for you, but you take the whole enchilada, you take the whole thing,"' he said. "You take everything else that comes with it. Because if you want Roe gone, you have to work with us."
Schenck then argued that, while Christian conservatives eventually got what they wanted from Republicans, it came at a great spiritual cost.
"From that point on that community that I had served, and still do, made a deal with the devil," he said. "That deal was, we would support everything on the conservative agenda, whether or not we had conscientious conflict with them. The means were justified by the ends of that."
Watch the video below or at this link.