Republicans needed wedge issues, and they choose (male) homosexuality and abortion. It was mostly during my lifetime, so I got to watch it happen They're obsessed with the Bible, and gay bashing at least has a basis there. Abortion doesn't and wasn't a big deal, but spinning it into a crisis was easy — who wants to kill a baby?!?

Of course, they lost the battle, even with their extravagant lies and ceaseless flogging. So now they do their go to move: keep ratcheting up the rhetoric. Anyone with the slightest wobble on economics is a Communist. "Woke" is evil, even if it's just being appalled by slavery. In fact, everyone who won't toe their line is evil — the Democratic Party becomes the Democrat Party, and now just "Demon-crats."

Being generally anti-abortion wasn't enough, so now it's "Demoncrats think babies should come with 30 days free returns like an Amazon order, so killing baby under a month of age is fine with them!!!" OK, that last is an exaggeration, but they've already made a fuss about "post-birth" abortions, extending that is just an extension of the insanity.

I remember Molly Ivins talking about the Texas GOP, where they weren't judged by their position on abortion, but on how many "pro-life" rallies they'd been to.

And you're right about seeming hypocritical, but that's their weapons-grade resistance to cognitive dissonance. "We are good people who are right with God! Our abortions are OK! Those other people are doing it for the wrong reasons! It's the greatest evil in the history of mankind!"

That last is the problem. Past experience says they'll refine the laws in way that mean they can get whatever medical care they need, but everyone else can lump it.

They're a case study into what happens to people who define their lives by a holy book while at the same time being immune to shame and have no principles beyond winning.

Now the SCOTUS is after Griswold and the right to birth control — at this point, they're more likely to ban the pill than reinstate Roe.