The Christianist wing of the GOP just don’t want bodily autonomy. The Handmaid’s Tale is just an extrapolation of their wishes.

Her motivation for writing the novel was her belief that in the 1980s, the religious right was discussing what they would do with/to women if they took power, including the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, and the Ronald Reagan administration. Atwood questions what would happen if these trends, and especially “casually held attitudes about women” were taken to their logical end.