Both Sides in Abortion Debate Gear Up for Fight at American Bar Assn. Meeting : Law: Members at Chicago session will reconsider delegates’ endorsement last February of Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade decision.

The 12,000 lawyers gathered here this week for the American Bar Assn. convention will have lots to argue about, from the “right to die” issue to how best to handle massive environmental pollution lawsuits.

But they are finding out, like lawmakers in half a dozen states, that one topic--abortion--can drown out all the rest.

So far, the story is one of political organizing rather than lawyerly debate.

Under ABA rules, all members attending a convention are entitled to cast a vote to advise the governing body on policy stands. And thousands of lawyers are coming here to do just that.

In February, at the group’s midwinter meeting in Los Angeles, the ABA governing delegates went on record for the first time in support of the Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade ruling and a woman’s right to abortion. But afterward thousands of lawyers--women and men--expressed outrage that their association was supporting what one pending resolution calls the “right to kill inconvenient human beings.”

This week, abortion opponents hope to get that resolution repealed, in favor of a “neutral” policy on abortion. They sent out more than 48,000 letters to lawyers and enlisted the support of Roman Catholic law school deans and church officials in the effort to draw lawyers here.

“We are trying to round up everyone from South Bend (Indiana) to Milwaukee,” said Christopher Robling, a political consultant to the anti-abortion group.

Meanwhile, abortion rights advocates have sent out 170,000 letters to ABA members urging lawyers to show up to reaffirm the Los Angeles vote.

Either way, a vote today will not come easily, or cheaply. It costs $250 to register at the convention and a member must register before he can vote.

“This is believed to be the highest price ever paid for a vote in Cook County,” a Chicago lawyer commented wryly.

As befits a modern political campaign, both sides can point to polling data to bolster their cause. In a poll of several hundred members, the ABA Journal found that lawyers, by a 70% to 30% margin, said that Roe vs. Wade should not be overturned. But a separate poll of several hundred others found that lawyers, by a 57% to 35% margin, said that the ABA should be neutral on the issue.

There is no question, however, that the abortion issue has split the organization. About 1,500 members, of a total of 360,000, have turned in their resignations since the February resolution and more have threatened to do so if the vote is not reversed this week. Both current President L. Stanley Chauvin Jr. and incoming President John Curtin Jr. say that the ABA should be neutral.

But abortion rights advocates are going all-out because they say a reversal of the ABA stand would be seen as a weakening of support for the right to abortion, just as lawmakers in some states are considering new restrictions.

“Real neutrality is no longer an option,” said Sally Determan, a backer of the abortion rights resolution. “It will be seen as a repudiation of Roe vs. Wade,” if the policy is reversed.

Neither side is predicting victory today before the ABA assembly. And that is just the start of the process. On Wednesday, the 461-member House of Delegates, the policy-making body, meets to reconsider the issue. It is not obliged to accept the judgment of the members meeting in today’s assembly.