If you ever lived in a place before leash laws, you encountered dogs chasing cars. I’m not here to explain why. It’s a metaphor.
When a dog chases a car, the dog doesn’t necessarily expect to catch the car. A cyclist or runner? Sure, but a car?
For the dog, it’s just a dog chasing something in it’s territory. It’s job is done when the object leaves it’s territory.
For the GOP and the forced birth community chasing the abortion issue was like chasing a car. Every time it came around (elections) and they would chase after it. Some of them won elections with the issue. But like the dog chasing the car, they were never really going to be able to do anything with it because Roe v Wade stood as a roadblock.
On the other side of the issue, there was some skepticism that the dog would ever catch the car, so there was never any real incentive to put up a fence to prevent the dog from catching or even chasing the car.
The dog catching the car isn’t serendipitous for those driving the car, because the result of the dog catching the car caused extreme damage to some who needed the car. Meanwhile those who had been advocating for a fence are seeing some of their neighbors coming out and supporting fences because they want to be able to drive their car without worrying about more dogs doing damage to their car.
Meanwhile the dog is going, WTF? I thought everyone wanted me to catch the car. Turns out it was only a few other dogs were pulling for the dog. The dog never appreciated that the world extended beyond it’s immediate vision.