Several Policies to Be Dumped by Decree : Executive orders: Clinton is expected to fulfill campaign vows with new rules on abortion, medical research and other high-profile matters.

Among his first official acts after taking the oath of office, President-elect Bill Clinton is expected to issue a series of executive orders dealing with abortion counseling, medical research, organized labor and other high-profile policy matters.

In most instances, the presidential orders will implement campaign promises made to women, gays, labor unions and other groups that supported the Democratic ticket and whose views coincide with those of the incoming President. The executive actions generally will reverse policies promoted over the past 12 years by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush.

No set time frame has been established for issuing the directives. But some of Clinton’s advisers say they expect to see most of them within the first two to three weeks of his term.

“We’re going to be ready to go on Day 1,” said one senior aide.

Women’s groups and some Clinton advisers expect that one of the first orders will abolish the “gag rule” that forbids counselors in federally subsidized family planning clinics to advise patients about abortion. In the last Congress, a solid majority voted to rescind this policy, and a federal appeals court last November blocked its enforcement.

Bush maintained the support of abortion foes through a series of orders, including the gag rule, that sought to limit abortions. He blocked U.S. aid to international groups that supported abortions and prohibited the importation of RU-486, the French abortion pill. During his campaign, Clinton promised to reverse most of these policies with new directives.

The new President is expected to lift a federal ban on research using tissue from aborted fetuses. Scientists have complained that the ban, first imposed by the Reagan Administration in 1988, has halted medical research that could prove beneficial to patients with Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, Huntington’s disease, diabetes, spinal cord injuries and other conditions.

Women’s groups have scoffed at the notion that permitting such research encourages women to have abortions in order to sell fetuses.

In another health-related controversy, Clinton may eliminate an immigration rule that forbids HIV-infected persons from entering the country and has sparked an international furor.

The regulation has been in effect since 1987, when Congress approved an amendment sponsored by Sen. Jesse Helms (R--N.C.) that added AIDS or infection with the human immunodeficiency virus to the list of diseases that bar people from entry. Congress later reversed itself and passed a law giving the secretary of health and human services the authority to determine what diseases pose a public health danger and should be kept on the list.

Bush’s HHS secretary, Louis W. Sullivan, attempted to remove AIDS from the list, proposing that tuberculosis be the only condition barring immigrants and travelers from entering the United States. But under pressure from congressional conservatives, Bush Administration officials have allowed the AIDS prohibition to remain. The ban has been attacked as discriminatory and medically unnecessary by civil rights groups, AIDS advocacy groups and members of the world health community.

Clinton, on another immigration matter, has determined he should not immediately reverse the Bush Administration’s policy of forcibly returning Haitians who reach the shores of South Florida from their troubled homeland.

Clinton criticized this policy as “cruel” during the campaign and said recently that “I still believe the policy should be changed.” But, he added, “I don’t think we can do it on a dime, on January the 20th.”

At the request of organized labor, Clinton is expected to rescind a directive issued by Bush last year requiring 35,000 local unions to compile and report detailed accounts of their spending. Bush’s order was intended to protect the rights of dissidents in “agency shop” unions to seek refunds if their dues were spent for political purposes.

Union officials have complained that the policy costs them millions of dollars in accounting and paper-work expenses.

Additionally, the Bush Administration last October reversed a longstanding Labor Department policy and outlawed union work agreements governing large federal projects. This won him the last-minute endorsement of the Associated Builders and Contractors.

At the behest of the AFL-CIO, Clinton is expected to reverse the Bush directive and return to the previous pro-union policy.

After much debate over how he should handle the issue of gays in the military, including possible establishment of a commission to study the problem, Clinton apparently has determined he will issue an executive order to protect their rights and fulfill a campaign promise.

George Stephanopolous, Clinton’s communications director, said Clinton is leaning away from a proposal that he delegate the task to his new defense secretary, Les Aspin.

Stephanopolous told reporters recently that the new President “will act to overturn the ban on gays in the military. That is clear. I expect it will be eventually by executive order, but the final decisions have not yet been reached, the exact structure of the decision.”

Advisers said Clinton is expected to order the military to begin placing women in some combat positions, perhaps starting with aircraft. Congress already has repealed some laws barring women from combat service.

Times staff writers Marlene Cimons, William J. Eaton, Melissa Healy and David Savage contributed to this story.