They eliminated abortion because the religious extremists wanted that.
The religious extremists are dumb as fuck as they learn and teach religion over science. That makes them useful gullible idiots that are easy to control. You want extremists behind you if you want to be a dictator as you can easily convince them with dumb obvious lies and they will be happy to have a scape goat group (it’s the evildemocrats fault!! Or the progressives! Or the gays! Or the brown people! Or the <insert other minority>)
Also, religious extremists are very useful when you want opponents murdered, they’ll be happy to help in the name of <insert god here>
So yeah, they have been feeding and using religious extremists for their real cause: themselves, a few wealthy and rich assholes.