HOUSTON WATCH : Cast System

It’s too bad that those platform carpenters in Houston don’t see the abortion issue the way California Gov. Pete Wilson does. Like fellow Republican John Seymour, who is running to fill Wilson’s unexpired U.S. Senate term, the governor is for abortion rights, and he has been for all of his Republican life. But the GOP platform calls for a constitutional ban on abortions, and that troubles a lot of Americans--and not a few of them are Republican.

In general, the American people appear to be moderately in favor of abortion rights. Polls show that a majority favors neither a total ban nor unlimited access. Most support the 1973 Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, and a wide majority believes that abortion should be available under at least some circumstances.

That’s a sensible view--but on this issue the middle ground is a no person’s land as far as the two major parties are concerned. Last month, the Democratic convention denied Pennsylvania Gov. Robert P. Casey the podium because of his anti-abortion views. That was unbecoming. But it’s worse this week in Houston. For reasons of party amity, a floor discussion of the issue is being avoided.

Wilson himself persuaded abortion rights advocates in the California delegation to check their weapons before going onto the floor in Houston. That was an understandable, pragmatic political compromise: Wilson wants to reelect George Bush. But it’s a sad commentary on our ability to talk to each another when an issue this sensitive and personal becomes cast in the concrete of ideology.