Abortion a Taboo Topic as Bush Stumps for 1990 Senate and Governor Candidates

President Bush, who was 0 for 3 in campaigning for Republican candidates on Election Day, 1989, set his sights Monday on the 1990 elections, stumping for Senate and gubernatorial candidates in Illinois and Rhode Island.

But, just as his Republican Party field work a few weeks ago led him into a political mine field--the debate over abortion--his travels Monday brought him into states where Republican women running for the Senate have asked him, unsuccessfully, to relax his anti-abortion position.

And his approach to the politics of abortion remains unchanged: It’s a taboo subject when George Bush is on the political stump. On Monday, he spoke about El Salvador, the economy, drugs and crime.

He spoke also about the talks planned for Dec. 2 and 3 with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev on U.S. and Soviet warships in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Malta, telling Republican contributors that “this meeting will occur because America has been resolute in defense of liberty.”

But there was no mention of abortion and of his differences with Rep. Lynn Martin (R-Ill.) and Rep. Claudine Schneider (R-R.I.), GOP Senate candidates who appealed to the President a week ago to shift from his adamant anti-abortion approach.

In New Jersey and Virginia, where Bush campaigned for Republican gubernatorial candidates Rep. Jim Courter and J. Marshall Coleman, the candidates’ opposition to abortion rights became central issues that damaged their campaigns. In both cases, the Republicans lost, as did the New York City Republican mayoral candidate, Rudolph W. Giuliani, for whom Bush also campaigned.

After the elections, Bush went out of his way to emphasize that there is room in the Republican Party for a variety of views on the emotional issue of abortion.

But, for the second time, he vetoed a bill appropriating money for the District of Columbia on Monday because it would allow funds from local taxes to be spent on abortion. Bush took the action while returning to Washington aboard Air Force One.

Although Bush and his aides say that he will not budge from his anti-abortion position, his approach has shifted over the last decade--from one in which he accepted the 1973 Supreme Court decision permitting abortions, to one in which he called for a constitutional amendment that would prohibit them.

Most recently, he has said that he would permit abortion only in cases in which a continued pregnancy would threaten the life of the mother, or when a pregnancy results from rape or incest. But he has also said that he opposes the use of federal funds to pay for abortions in the latter two cases.

And, on Sunday, he vetoed legislation containing $15 million for a United Nations agency that funds population control programs in China, which critics say include forced sterilizations and abortions.

The day of political activity provided a break from the President’s primary preoccupation these days--preparation for the shipboard summit talks.

But, as Bush set out for Chicago, White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater announced that the President will visit Brussels immediately after the Malta summit to report to Western leaders on his conversations with Gorbachev.

In addition to helping raise funds for Martin in Illinois and Schneider in Rhode Island, Bush spoke here in Warwick, near Providence, at a fund-raising dinner for Rhode Island Republican Gov. Edward DiPrete, calling for a renewed attack on the capital gains tax.

His effort to cut the tax, paid on profits from stocks and other investments, was pushed aside by the Senate last week.

In Chicago, the President visited the Josiah Little Pickard Elementary School in a drug-infested neighborhood and distributed $50 savings bonds donated by a local bank to the winners of an anti-drug poster contest.