The Handmaid's Tale was published in 1985, shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade guaranteed the right to abortion for women in America in 1973. The feminist gains of the 1970s, however, seemed threatened by the growing conservatism of the 1980s. The New Right was a group composed of Christian religious leaders and conservative businessmen who wanted to return the United States to its puritanical path, including implementing family values ​​into American life and encouraging the pro-life movement, because the group believed that Americans were becoming Godless. When Ronald Reagan won his presidency with the help of the New Right, the chances of abortion remaining legal seemed slim, since the Reagans themselves were strongly in favor of life. Atwood wrote her novel in a time of panic, when women feared losing the right to choose after a long battle, a decision made on the basis of a religion they might not join. Luckily for them, Reagan was unable to implement laws that would have largely threatened their reproductive rights, but it was a dark look at how much of women's bodies they themselves own. A simple flick of a politician's wrist and he could lose control over much of his power