If the GOP wants to define itself by its stance on abortion it will quickly find itself with a vastly shrinking pool of voters who would identify with the party. That is bad news for the GOP, which needs to expand voter interest in its candidates.

This kind of pandering is bad news for Romney and the GOP at large. Romney isn’t going to win over more voters than if he simply stated that abortion is legal in the US and that isn’t going to change, but we should do more to provide alternatives (see adoption) because it might be a net loss - voters coming to him for staking pro-life versus those dropping because he changed his position; and changing his position based on situational awareness isn’t going to help convince those pro-lifers in any event.

Then again, abortion is a stand-in for a wider range of social issues, and here too the problem is that the GOP is pushing for positions that aren’t sustainable as anything other than as a regional party - it just wont fly on the coasts and NE (which also happens to be where the voters are).

The GOP has got to get back to preaching fiscal responsibility (and yes, I know that they’re still in the wilderness over that as well).