CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS / U.S. SENATE : Abortion Issue Stays at Forefront of Campaign

Each of the major party candidates running for California’s two U.S. Senate seats seems to agree that the chief concern among voters this year is, as U.S. Sen. John Seymour puts it: “Jobs, jobs, jobs.”

Most opinion polls agree.

But catch Seymour or his opponent, Democrat Dianne Feinstein, on any given day and it would seem that abortion rights is the only issue in the race. And much the same is true of Democrat Barbara Boxer as she campaigns against Republican Bruce Herschensohn for the seat held by retiring Sen. Alan Cranston.

Other issues constantly are bubbling up, but the dispute over abortion rights always seems to be there. The debate over abortion sometimes seems to command more rhetoric, more news conferences, more signs, demonstrations and angry words than any other issue. It has been an issue that has divided Republicans and rallied conservatives and liberals alike.

A Los Angeles Times poll concluded last week showed that most voters this year are much more concerned about jobs and the economy. Health care, education, crime and other issues ranked above abortion rights in The Times Poll.

But on an emotional scale, abortion rights sometimes goes over the top. In recent months, women have been brought to tears at news conferences, Seymour has split with President Bush over the issue, and it has caused deep divisions within the Republican Party. At the Republican National Convention in Houston, shoving and shouting matches developed over the anti-abortion language in the party platform.

At the state Republican convention this month, similar deep divisions surfaced, with anti-abortion activists writing strict abortion language into the state plank. Moderate Republicans who fought the language, led by aides to Gov. Pete Wilson, believe that the plank will cost Republicans votes in the Nov. 3 election.

The issue has proved to be a source of campaign contributions and volunteer support for candidates on both sides.

Some Senate candidates believe that if the races go down to the wire the issue could be decisive, despite the concerns about jobs and the economy.

“It’s clear that the economy is No. 1. No other issue comes close,” said Rose Kapolczynksi, Boxer’s campaign manager. “Choice isn’t going to make a 10-point difference in this election, but it could make a one-point difference and that could be our margin of victory.”

Seymour, Feinstein and Boxer say they are committed to maintaining a woman’s legal right to abortion, and they support legislation that would put the rights granted in the landmark Roe vs. Wade decision into law. Roe vs. Wade, a case decided in 1973, legalized abortion nationwide and was based on a woman’s constitutional right to privacy.

Herschensohn, a radio and television commentator before jumping into the race, is the only major party candidate in the two races who is squarely opposed to abortion rights.

Underlying the interest in the issue is the wafer-thin margin by which the U. S. Supreme Court has been upholding Roe vs. Wade.

In June, the Supreme Court affirmed the right of women to abortions, but the vote was 5 to 4. And the court allowed states to impose certain restrictions, such as a 24-hour waiting period for abortions and requiring a minor to get the consent of a parent or judge.

In dissent, four justices indicated that they were prepared to overturn Roe vs. Wade and permit states to outlaw abortion.

“People are realizing that we are on the brink of losing something that everyone thought was safe and secure,” said Robin Schneider, spokeswoman for the Southern California office of the California Abortion Rights Action League.

Women in the abortion rights movement view efforts by members of the nearly all-male Supreme Court to overturn the 1973 case as one more example of men trying to control the lives of women.

“They treat us like children,” said one activist. “They don’t believe we can make the choice on our own.”

Feinstein calls the abortion rights question “a fundamental battle because it goes to the depths of control.”

Feinstein also has zeroed in on Seymour’s vote last year to confirm Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. Seymour said he is proud of his vote for Thomas and would do it again. Feinstein has promised not to vote to confirm another justice who is anti-abortion, a litmus test that Seymour refuses to support.

Meanwhile, anti-abortion activists have stepped up their drive to outlaw abortion. Their big victory of the summer was keeping the anti-abortion plank in the Republican Party platform.

“We just think there should be one party for life,” said Donna Ellis, a member of the Shasta County Republican Central Committee who is working hard for Herschensohn and proudly says she is “pro-life, pro-family, pro-guns and anti-tax.”

Herschensohn favors a constitutional amendment to ban abortion, and believes that the Supreme Court stretched the Constitution in the Roe vs. Wade decision. He believes that abortion is morally wrong under any circumstances, except in cases where a pregnancy develops from rape, incest or if it puts a woman’s life in danger.

“I agree that a woman has a right to do with whatever she wants with her own body. But a woman doesn’t have four eyes, two noses, four ears and two hearts. We are talking about another body here,” he said.

But Herschensohn acknowledges the volatility of the issue, and views it warily, conceding that polls show that roughly two-thirds of Californians favor abortion rights. He states his views on abortion frankly, but generally only when asked. The focus of his campaign has been on foreign policy and his conservative agenda on the environment and pocketbook issues.

Last week, Boxer announced the formation of Republican support groups in four major California cities. Although she and Herschensohn differ sharply on environmental, tax and other issues, Boxer’s unqualified support for abortion rights was the chief thread that ran through all her supporters in the GOP.

Boxer has attracted major support from abortion rights advocates such as the 80,000-member California Abortion Rights Action League and the National Abortion Rights Action League, which are distributing posters naming Herschensohn as “an enemy of choice.”

Boxer said she respects the potency of the anti-abortion movement. “I’m certainly going to be facing a lot of those people coming to the polls. They will be motivated to vote,” Boxer said.

In the other race for the Senate, Democratic Party candidate Feinstein, who also is supported by the California and national abortion rights leagues, speaks about abortion with great emotion. During speeches, she holds audiences of women at rapt attention as she relates to them what she calls the “terrible irony” she faced during the early 1960s when she sat as an appointed member of the California Women’s Board of Terms and Parole.

The board set the sentences and granted paroles for women accused of performing abortions, then a crime. The problem she faced, Feinstein says, is that as she was deciding the immediate futures of these women, she attended social gatherings where friends would raise money by “passing the plate for young women . . . to go to these same people.”

Seymour has spent a considerable amount of effort trying to overcome confusion that exists among voters who mistakenly believe that he opposes abortion rights and who may vote for Feinstein because of it. Poll after poll has shown that voters believe Seymour shares Herschensohn’s anti-abortion views. Most recently, the Los Angeles Times Poll found that 20% of those surveyed believed Seymour favored abortion rights, while 20% believed he was anti-abortion, and 60% did not know his view.

To correct that, Seymour has appeared with abortion rights activists at a news conference on the steps of the Supreme Court, joined efforts to eliminate anti-abortion language from the Republican Party platform and spoken about the issue just about every chance he gets.

Part of his problem may stem from the fact that he has not always had the same view. At one time, he opposed abortion rights. Seymour said he still is personally opposed to abortion but that since 1989 he has believed that women should be allowed to make one of the most personal decisions a woman has to make.

Because of the shift in positions, Feinstein works into just about every speech the comment that Seymour “isn’t pro-choice, he’s multiple choice.”