Republicans Pressed to Ease Up on Anti-Abortion Stance : Politics: After Bush’s defeat, GOP abortion-rights advocates are mounting a fight against religious right.

In the wake of the Republicans’ presidential election defeat, pressure is mounting to move the party away from the adamant opposition to abortion that has been a hallmark of the Reagan-Bush era.

Abortion rights groups, more determined than ever, are planning to flex their muscles in precinct-level skirmishes against conservative Christian foes of abortion. “The election was a catalyst for us,” said Mary Crisp, chairwoman of the National Republican Coalition for Choice. “It gave us evidence that we were right.”

Earlier this month, activists from Crisp’s group spent three days in Houston devising ways to deploy their 25,000 members to achieve their main goals: changing the national platform plank opposing abortion, defeating incumbent Republican foes of abortion in primary contests and electing Republican supporters of abortion rights at every opportunity.

Such efforts are bound to meet stiff resistance at every turn from Christian conservatives and other abortion foes, who are determined to maintain the party’s present stand.

Nevertheless, it is significant that for the first time some longtime supporters of the party’s stance against abortion are tacitly acknowledging that post-election political realities will require a change from the hard-line abortion language of recent national platforms.

“I am pro-life, and I intend to remain pro-life,” said William Kristol, chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle. But, he added, “I think the party is better off if it makes some adjustment.”

At this year’s GOP convention, attempts were made to modify the national platform’s call for a constitutional ban on abortion, a call that echoed the language of the 1984 and 1988 platforms. But these attempts were crushed by the platform committee at the behest of President Bush’s campaign strategists.

Kristol and others predict a different scenario at the 1996 Republican National Convention.

“The platform debate will be between those who want to leave the abortion plank out altogether and those who would prefer a more nuanced pro-life position that would also acknowledge the gradations of opinion on the issue within the American people,” Kristol said. Abortion is one of the most emotional and complex issues on the political landscape, and its impact on voting behavior is hard to assess.

Opponents of abortion cite exit poll data to support their claim that their position was a winner for the GOP last November. The Los Angeles Times exit poll, for example, showed that among the 12% of voters who said abortion was an important factor in their presidential decision, Bush came out ahead of Democrat Bill Clinton by a margin of 57% to 37%.

But other analysts note that such single-issue voters tend to represent a small slice of the overall electorate, and other exit polls showed that a majority of voters generally favored abortion rights.

“The hard-line stand on abortion contributed to the Republican Party’s hard-right image in the election, which alienated a good many young people living in the suburbs,” said University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato.

Some Republicans now fear that the GOP’s unyielding opposition to abortion will hinder the party’s efforts to mount a comeback by broadening its base.

“Right-to-life candidates do better than choice candidates in races where that is a defining issue,” said Republican consultant Eddie Mahe, an ardent foe of abortion. “But you can’t build a political majority around that issue.”

“Republican candidates need to remind people that they understand nobody is living on ‘The Donna Reed Show’ anymore,” said Republican pollster William McInturff, who worked for Bush’s 1988 campaign.

Whatever the effect on the 1992 returns, some Republicans say the loss of the White House--and with it the ability to appoint anti-abortion Supreme Court justices and veto abortion-rights bills--has rendered abortion moot as a partisan issue for now.

“The reality is that there is no legislative or judicial opportunity for anything to be done on this issue for years and years to come,” said Mahe. “That battle is now lost.”

Some Republicans believe that before too long, the transfer of executive power to Clinton and the Democrats could turn the abortion issue into a Republican advantage.

“Up to now, we’ve borne the burden,” said Kristol. “Now (the Democrats) are going to control the presidency, and in effect the (Supreme) Court, as well as Congress. If Clinton doesn’t go all the way to pure freedom of choice on abortion, he will take grief from activists in his own party. But if he does go all the way, I think he will alienate a lot of moderate voters.”

As Kristol sees it, the party’s platform position on abortion could be tailored to fit the changing political atmosphere, perhaps reflecting enactment by the Democratic Congress of proposed “freedom of choice” legislation to establish broad safeguards for abortion rights.

Ultimately, said David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, such shifting could lead to a political standoff on the abortion issue. “Down the road, the Republicans will be for right to life with certain exceptions, and the Democrats will be for choice with certain restrictions, and they will probably be in the same place.”

In the meantime, Republicans already seem to be adjusting to the new post-election landscape, as reflected by the early competition for a national chairman to take over the party when Bush leaves the White House.

The first three men to become declared candidates for the job--House campaign committee co-chairman Spencer Abraham, former Reagan White House aide Haley Barbour and former Army Secretary Howard (Bo) Callaway--have made a point of not taking sides on the issue.

“If I’m elected chairman, I intend to be neutral,” said Abraham.

“I think Republicans were misportrayed as being intolerant during the presidential campaign,” said Barbour. “We have to show people that in fact intolerance is intolerable to our party, whether it’s on abortion or other issues.”

And Callaway asserted: “I don’t think we have a chance of winning elections unless we let it be known that we welcome both sides on the abortion issue into our party.”

But such benign neglect clearly will not satisfy some abortion rights supporters. “This issue cannot be swept under the rug,” said Republican consultant John Deardourff, who only works for abortion-rights candidates. “The abortion issue really serves as a metaphor for a much larger concern that people have about the party: The impression that there is some appropriate set of family values, (and) if you don’t happen to fit (them), there’s no place for you in the party.”

Deardourff said he wants to rid the Republican Party of “the radical religious right.”

“If changing the platform on abortion is what it takes to get them out, I’m in favor of doing that,” he said.

But another prominent abortion rights advocate, Ann Stone, does not want to purge conservative Christians from the party but simply wants to limit their influence.

Stone, who heads Republicans for Choice, a 100,000-member political action committee, plans to plunge into caucus and primary battles in several key states now regarded as strongholds of the Christian right. The effort, called Operation Take Back the Party, has a $500,000 budget.

“We are going to demonstrate to the rest of the party that the Christian right is mainly smoke and mirrors, not real voting strength,” she said.

By 1994, Stone wants her troops to help assure that a majority of Republicans running for statewide office around the country support abortion rights, compared with roughly one third who took that position in past elections.

On the other side of the issue, conservative Christians claim that abortion rights advocates are trying to make them scapegoats for Bush’s defeat.

“Those who never wanted us in the party to begin with are pointing fingers at us,” said Martin Mawyer, president and founder of Christian Action Network, a grass-roots lobbying group.

Ralph Reed, executive director of the Christian Coalition, a 300,000-member group founded by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, also opposes a Republican shift on abortion. But he points out that Christian conservatives have other concerns besides that issue.

“The abortion issue is clearly important, but it’s not the whole enchilada,” he said. “There are a lot of other issues, like taxes, crime, education and drugs. We as a constituency are becoming more mature, and our agenda is becoming broader.”