Abortion Issue Will Fade, White House Says

The White House suggested Monday that abortion laws will not be a deciding issue of next year’s elections and called divergent views on the subject a “matter of principle,” not of politics.

Marlin Fitzwater, President Bush’s spokesman, also voiced recognition of rallies in favor of abortion rights that took place Sunday in the capital and elsewhere around the country.

“We certainly approve of the rally and are glad that (participants) exercised their right to speak out,” Fitzwater said of the Washington gathering, which drew a crowd estimated at 150,000.

Fitzwater made the comments in the aftermath of last week’s elections, in which Republicans who espoused Bush’s view that abortion should be outlawed lost to pro-choice Democrats.

After weeks of tough anti-abortion talk from the White House and two vetoes of abortion-financing legislation, Fitzwater suggested that Bush has no quarrel with those who support legal abortion.

The rally on Sunday “was expressing the views of a lot of people who feel very strongly and very deeply about that subject,” Fitzwater said. “Abortion is an issue that people feel strongly about on both sides. It’s a matter of principle.”

Bush favors amending the Constitution to prohibit abortion. He vetoed two spending bills that would have extended Medicaid coverage to abortions for poor women who were victims of rape or incest. Currently, federal funds may pay for an abortion only if pregnancy endangers the mother’s life.

Fitzwater recently said that Bush would not hire anyone for a policy-making position who did not share his view on abortion. But on Monday, he said:

“It’s our belief that people should take a position on this issue according to their strong moral and religious and personal beliefs, and that should be the deciding factor, not politics.”

Asked about poll results indicating that pro-choice positions helped Democratic gubernatorial candidates in New Jersey and Virginia last week, and in the New York mayor’s race, Fitzwater said: “We think there were a lot of issues.

“Any number of factors resulted in the victories and the losses for the particular candidates. . . . Abortion was an important issue, but . . . people don’t decide elections on one issue.”

As to whether the White House shared some GOP strategists’ worry that the abortion issue might handicap Republicans in 1990, Fitzwater said: “No.”