Remember that the Southern Baptist Convention praised Roe v. Wade when it was first decided. Conservative icon Barry Goldwater was a champion of abortion rights, so much so that one of Planned Parenthood’s major awards was named for him.

What changed? The true Republican base, the local gentry, discovered that they couldn’t make money from abortion after all and, much worse, it empowered the poor by giving poor women a right and an option that the rich had always had. Beyond that, the burgeoning Dominionist theocrat movement needed a wedge issue to replace opposition to civil rights, which they finally recognized was a long term loser.