Some of liberal media's favorite conservatives went from being pro-life to pro-Roe over the years

An entire class of pundits went through a seismic ideological shift following the political rise of Donald Trump, especially on the issue of abortion.

Self-identified "NeverTrump conservatives" who spoke out against Trump's ascendance in the Republican Party became popular cable news fixtures over the years – with some opposing him at first for fear that he would be insufficiently conservative, pointing to his past allegiance to the Democratic Party. 

However, many who have remain staunchly opposed to him have also altered their views on key issues, particularly on abortion. Trump took credit for a major victory for the pro-life movement last week after the Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade decision declaring a constitutional right to abortion; all three of the Justices he nominated voted with the majority on the decision.

But prominent critics of Trump who once identified or still identify as conservative expressed horror at the fall of the 1973 decision, in spite of past rhetoric that suggested opposition to abortion or the constitutionality of the Roe decision itself. In some of the more prominent instances, those involved have allied strongly with the Democratic Party, whose members are overwhelmingly pro-choice.

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Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin is perhaps the clearest example of this phenomenon. The writer was formerly one of the legacy media's biggest critics of President Obama and had long been an opponent of late-term abortions.  In a July 2013 op-ed, she celebrated polling that showed strong support for a 20-week ban and making abortions illegal with exceptions. 

But she complained that the Supreme Court was preventing legislation that advanced the pro-life movement. 

"One of the great tragedies of the Supreme Court’s domination of this issue is that it impeded discussion of compromise and generally made legislation with firm limits on abortion impossible," Rubin wrote at the time.

"It is only in the liberal echo chamber that extreme pro-abortion voices can convince themselves that their abortion ‘any time, for any reason paid for by the taxpayers' is a mainstream view," Rubin separately wrote in 2012. 

Nearly nine years later, Rubin got her wish, but she was far from happy about it, penning a piece titled, "The Supreme Court eviscerates abortion rights and its own legitimacy."

"The court’s decision is so emphatic, and so contemptuous of the principle of stare decisis, that one wonders whether the unvarnished radicalism of the decision will finally rouse millions of Americans to the threat posed by a court untethered to law, precedent or reason," Rubin wrote on Friday. 

"The hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty of the court’s right-wing justices lead to the conclusion that they have simply appointed themselves super-legislators free to impose a view of the United States as a White, Christian and male-dominated society despite the values, beliefs and choices of a majority of 330 million modern Americans."

The Post columnist and MSNBC contributor called for voters to elect pro-choice U.S. Senators to eliminate the filibuster in order to "protect reproductive rights and reformulate the court, including the removal of lifetime tenure."

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"The court’s decision may result in women’s deaths. But it has certainly killed off what is left of the court’s credibility. And for that, there is no solution in sight," Rubin added. 

Rubin did not immediately respond to Fox News' request for comment. 

The Atlantic contributing writer Tom Nichols, a once-outspoken critic of Roe v. Wade, has a lengthy Twitter history trashing the legitimacy of the 1973 ruling, saying it "invented a new right."

"Roe v Wade was 40 years ago, and we still fight over limits, funding, govt role, etc in abortion. Why? B/c Court, not ppl, decided," Nichols tweeted in June 2015. "And this interpretation of 14th Amd was so weak, and Kennedy's reasoning so emotional, it's ripe for challenge."

In September 2015, Nichols took a swipe at comedian Margaret Cho, who declared "God created abortions."

"Well, by that reasoning, God created Zyklon B, too, but I'm still against using it on anyone," Nichols reacted.

But when Roe v. Wade was reversed, Nichols suggested the current Supreme Court and the one that established the abortion precedent come from the same cloth. 

"And they'll do this while Republicans claim it is not activism, but merely fixing the activism of previous courts - when in fact it is exactly the kind of agenda-driven, results-focused jurisprudence conservatives once claimed to hate," Nichols tweeted. 

The MSNBC regular went on to justify his opposition to the decision, writing, "I respect the argument that Roe was bad law. I think it was a far better case for overturning it before we - all of us right and left - allowed it to become an established right over 50 years. That does matter, imo."

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He also took a swipe at the five conservative justices, tweeting, "This court had five hardliners whose reasoning is 'we don't like abortion,'" despite his own admission Roe v. Wade was "bad law."

On Monday, Nichols went even further, declaring the Dobbs decision "worse" than Roe. 

"Anti-abortion conservatives huff that the Court has regularly overturned hideous decisions, such as Dred Scott, Plessy…  Roe, they argue, is just another bad case that was due for reversal. This is reasoning in a vacuum, as if nothing happened over the course of 50 years," Nichols argued. "It’s true that abortion is not in the Constitution. A lot of things aren’t in the Constitution, including the ‘right to be left alone,' but that hasn’t stopped Americans from recognizing that such rights exist."

Nichols did not immediately respond to Fox News' request for comment. 

Evan McMullin became a national figure when he launched his bid as an independent candidate for president in 2016, declaring himself the conservative alternative to both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

At the time, McMullin vowed to "pursue court appointments that would overturn Roe v. Wade." He even challenged Trump from the right, tweeting "Why can't @RealDonaldTrump say the words ‘I want Roe v. Wade overturned?' I'm the only pro-life candidate in the race."

He parlayed his anti-Trump bona fides into becoming a frequent MSNBC guest during the Trump era.

Now, McMullin is running for Senate as an independent in Utah with the state's Democratic Party behind him in hopes of unseating the GOP incumbent Sen. Mike Lee. 

In time for their endorsement, he expressed opposition to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, issuing a statement saying, "Following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, some states are enacting extreme laws - total bans on abortion, onerous limits on birth control, and criminalization of women in desperate situations. I oppose such extreme laws." He released a similar statement in May after the majority draft opinion was leaked to the press.

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McMullin was confronted by MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan in May about how his 2016 and 2022 views were "compatible," and McMullin struggled to explain his transition. 

Upon an intense grilling, McMullin told Hasan that he did not think overturning Roe v. Wade is "the way for the country to move forward on this issue." 

The McMullin Senate campaign told Fox News that he is "pro-life" but "seeks a more unifying way forward for our divided country on this and other issues."

"Evan believes that most Utahns and Americans share a desire to protect the lives of women, children and the unborn. He also believes that the best way to lower the abortion rate in America is to do more to support women, children and families, and he is committed to doing that as a U.S. Senator," McMullin communications director Kelsey Koenen Witt said in a statement. 

The Lincoln Project has seen its star fall over the past year after a series of humiliating scandals, but its members still get a fair amount of media attention, such as Tara Setmayer guest-hosting "The View" and figures like co-founder Rick Wilson making cable news appearances. They have expressed pro-life views or sympathies in the past but, particularly in Setmayer's case, opposed the overturning of Roe v. Wade last week.

Setmayer previously called Warren Buffett "despicable" for giving money to abortion groups and said abortion constituted the taking of life. She even criticized Trump as insufficiently pro-life as the potential GOP nominee during the run-up to the 2016 campaign. 

In the aftermath of the leak of the majority draft in May indicating the Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade, Setmayer erupted during an appearance on MSNBC, saying it was "not their decision to make."

The Lincoln Project, which was founded by former and current Republicans opposed to Trump, fumed over the Roe decision being "shredded" by the Supreme Court and called it a "radical" intrusion that was part of a larger effort to take rights away from the American people.

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Wilson has said in the past he's pro-life, at one point agreeing with a tweet thanking conservative journalist Mollie Hemingway for "relentlessly exposing the evils of abortion." It's unclear if he was for the full overturning of Roe v. Wade before, but he was rueful about it in a discussion with Setmayer last month, saying even pro-life Americans should think about whether this is the set-up you'd want for your daughters.

Neither Wilson nor Setmayer responded to requests for comment.