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It never really was about abortion. It was always about building power for conservative christian institutions. Abortion was just the issue that they were able to build a power base around -- particularly by uniting Catholics and Evangelicals who previously didn't really get along. It was mostly an invented controversy that sprang up in the wake of Roe as part of a larger de-liberalization movement.
Even today, the statistics of people who actually believe that abortion should be fully and unconditionally banned -- what the conservatives are all legislating for -- is only something like 8%. Another 29% think there are at least some exceptions, and a vast majority think it should be mostly or completely legal.
In the numbers, this is a settled issue. It isn't even THAT contentious.
But the issue is politically incredibly useful, and the religiously fundamentalist institutions do a great job having outsized influence and concentrating power. It's a rare opportunity for conservatives to take a pseudo-ethical stance and advocate for an actual outcome -- normally they just look like weird, selfish freaks shouting "no no no" all the time. The fact that the ethics aren't there is irrelevant.
The birth of abortion as a wedge issue is a particularly strange one. It started with a wannabe Hollywood filmmaker, Frank Schaeffer, who made a video for Evangelicals with his father, which included a scene on abortion. For his next movie/series, he made it solely about abortions, and Evangelicals were like "That's a Catholic issue, we're not Catholic." and didn't come to see it. Then, the New York Post made an article on this weird avant garde anti-abortion movie, and radical feminists started protesting outside his movies - previously, they had been held in stadiums but were almost completely empty. The Evangelicals basically went "Well, if they're against it, we should be for it!" and started filling out the stadiums and adopting an anti-abortion stance.
Frank Schaeffer has since regretted his decision. At the time he was a new father, having accidently gotten his girlfriend/wife pregnant, and that was the source of his anti-abortion sentiment. These days he speaks out against the anti-abortion movement and the religious far-right.
There's a really good BBC podcast/radio show that goes through all of it, and even interviews Schaeffer himself. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0011cpq
Weirdly, Frank Schaeffer's Wikipedia page doesn't even really cover the anti-abortion video or the influence it had, it just casually mentions that he met with Reagan and others, as well as helping write one of Reagan's books.
There's so many little vignettes like this in the rise to prominence of the antichoice movement. Schaeffer is one of my favorites, but there's some other really weird little corners.
Another fun one was all these religious/evangelical schools that, in the post-Brown era, were facing down a future where they may have to start paying taxes if they wanted to maintain segregation. These institutions saw that their strictly racist policies were becoming politically unpalatable, so they sought out a way better issue to get that power. Still happening today, by the way, where explicitly religious schools are actively campaigning to get your tax dollars while continuing to teach bigotry and nonsense. Be VERY wary any time you hear a politician mention "school choice".
I also enjoy that Norma McCorvey (AKA Roe) was later turned into and paraded a bout as a pro life campaigner, saying she regretted the abortion and lawsuit and all that. Only to reveal later in her life that they paid her HANDSOMELY to do so and the beliefs and words were totally insincere, she just needed the money. I think that tells you a lot about the underlying moral fiber of these religious whackos.