Clinton Vows to Fight for Pick as Surgeon General

Facing up to the prospect of a bruising battle with the Senate’s new Republican majority over the explosive issue of abortion, the White House vowed an all-out fight Monday to win confirmation for Dr. Henry Foster Jr. as surgeon general.

Republican leaders said the nomination is in trouble and anti-abortion forces declared unyielding opposition to the nominee, who has acknowledged performing fewer than a dozen abortions in 30 years of practice as an obstetrician-gynecologist.

The issue is rapidly becoming a test of post-November backbone for the embattled White House. Some Democrats pointed out that it would not be out of character for Clinton to pull the plug on the nomination if overwhelming Republican opposition develops in the Senate. But doing so could deal another blow to the President’s image--both as a leader and as a champion of minorities, who constitute a substantial part of his political base.

Clinton told reporters he would fight for Foster, who is black, “if the facts are no different than I understand them to be.” Several senior White House aides said in interviews that the President has declared he is resolved to fight to the finish regardless of the extent of the opposition.

The President noted that Foster had “devoted his life to bringing babies into the world.” As for abortion, Clinton said, “It is after all the law of the land.”

“The President is totally committed to Dr. Foster,” said George Stephanopoulous, one of the aides. “He will see it through to the finish. He’s not going to back away.”

Another aide, who asked not to be identified, said: “This is a pretty fundamental fight about the right to choose and the Republicans are drifting quickly into making this a litmus test on abortion and asking members of their party to oppose Dr. Foster because he’s pro-choice.

“That’s not where this President is and that’s a fight that defines where the Republicans are on this issue,” the aide said.

Clinton announced his nomination of Foster, a Nashville, Tenn., physician, Thursday. Opposition developed the next day after the White House disclosed that Foster had performed fewer than 12 hospital abortions, mostly to save a mother’s life or in cases of rape or incest.

Republican leaders have said the nomination faces an uphill struggle. The National Clergy Council, a network of more than 3,000 Catholics and Protestants, said it would use every means possible to defeat Foster’s selection because he has performed abortions and has been active in the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Another development Monday threatened to generate more opposition. Gary Bauer, president of the Family Research Council, renewing his call for Clinton to withdraw Foster’s nomination, issued a statement claiming that newly discovered information links Foster to hundreds of abortions.

Bauer cited a comment that he said Foster made at a Nov. 10, 1978, meeting of the Ethics Advisory Board of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare in Seattle. Attached to Bauer’s statement was a page from a transcript that purports to show Foster telling the board: “I have done a lot of amniocentesis and therapeutic abortions, probably near 700.”

Foster denied the statement, according to Avis LaVelle, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services.

“I talked to Dr. Foster about this,” LaVelle said. “He flatly and totally insists that he has not done 700 of these procedures. He says the entire statement is untrue.”

Amniocentesis is different from a therapeutic abortion. The former involves extracting amniotic fluid from the uterus during pregnancy. The fluid can then be tested to determine the health of the fetus. If tests reveal birth defects, women sometimes choose to have abortions.

After learning of Bauer’s statement, Clinton said: “We’re going to have hearings. It’s going to go forward. If the facts are no different than I understand them to be, I don’t understand why he’d be in trouble.”

Asked why Clinton appeared to make his support of Foster conditional on whether the doctor had told the truth about his record, White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry said that opponents of the nomination were circulating a “weird transcript” that purports to represent Foster’s record on abortions. McCurry declined to elaborate.

Opposition to the Foster nomination by Republicans and anti-abortion groups was a major topic at Monday’s senior staff meeting at the White House. Afterward, an aide said, “nobody here would think of backing away from the Foster nomination. He is a Planned Parenthood guy, not an abortion activist. This is one the public will back us on.”

Yet the Clinton record of abandoning nominations that run into heavy sledding has left some Democrats uncertain whether the President will stand firm if opposition heats up. Only a week ago Clinton withdrew his nomination of Robert Pastor, a close associate of former President Carter, to be ambassador to Panama after Chairman Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee vigorously opposed it.

Earlier in his Administration the President backed away from nominations that ran into trouble: Zoe Baird and Kimba M. Wood, both to be attorney general; and C. Lani Guinier, to be head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division.

A veteran Democratic official, who declined to be identified, said that “based on Clinton’s record,” he would not be surprised to see the President withdraw the Foster nomination if overwhelming Republican opposition does develop in the Senate.

“But if he asked my advice,” said the Democrat, “I’d say you can afford to lose this fight but you can’t afford to run from it. I think most people would agree with that.”

A senior Clinton aide shared that assessment, saying: “This is a fight we can’t lose if we fight it to the finish. If the nomination goes down, the Republicans will be defeating a doctor who was recognized as a Point of Light by President George Bush for working to avoid teen-age pregnancy. If the Republicans defeat Foster, it will help Americans understand how extreme part of the Republican majority can be.”