From what I have read though, Evangelicals initially saw the abortion thing as a “Catholic thing.” And I come from a Catholic family background. But my understanding is that the Southern Baptist Convention applauded the Roe decision and was more focused on school busing at that time. However, they saw Roe as a way to grow their movement and make some inroads with the Catholics who in the past they had made some very bigoted statements about. Falwell and Robertson both made some very anti-Catholic statements before the religious right as we know it was formed. And I guess after Ford who was pro-choice lost in 1976, people like Reagan saw the writing on the wall and pandered to the RR and it helped him. From what I understand the RR never really trusted the late HW Bush since he had been pro choice as a member of Congress and his father even on the board of Planned Parenthood but they embraced him all the same against Dukakis and later his son who was better at speaking their language than HW Bush who I think was more from the Anglican/Episcopalian school of faith through actions and not words.