Will Abortion become THE ISSUE again?

Tim Rutten of the LA Times asked this question, while surveying the current political landscape. Given the recent upset victory of Timothy Dolan as President of the US Conference of Bishops and his obvious "pro-life above everything else stand", it appears that this has a great potential to come back as a significant issue in upcoming elections. 

As I've said many times, I am pro-life. However, I think one must be consistent with such a stance and protect life period. Meaning, that we must be as concerned about the countless children, in the US and abroad, who go asleep hungry, people lacking access to basic health care, etc, as we are those who have never taken a single breath. Justice must prevail upon all fronts. 

If this becomes a major issue again, I hope that it will not be the litmus test for all things conservative that it used to be. Other, very important social issues have long  been overlooked for this single topic, and many idiots (for lack of a better word) were sent to Washington simply because of their stand on this issue.  Let's hope we don't repeat the same mistakes!