Why do folks get their panties in a wad over abortion (or any other single item) as an election issue?
For some people - like my mom - it's the only issue. She's said to me quite a few times, it's the only issue she'll vote on. If the Republicans nominate a pro-choice candidate, she'll stay home. If the Democrats put a pro-life candidate against a pro-choice Republican, she'll vote Democrat. As astute as she is about politics, she's astonishingly myopic about this issue.
Me, personally, I don't get it. Roe v. Wade has been the law of the land for 35 years and very, very little legislation has ever made it anywhere to change that. We've had justices come and go without changing it, since then. We've had numerous presidents, come and go, on both sides of the issue - and it hasn't changed.
To me, hitching your vote to that issue is completely pointless. It's like attaching it to wanting to put a man on Mars. While politically interesting, it's useless on a pragmatic level.