GOP Presidential Hopefuls Ease Anti-Abortion Stance

Even as the Republican Party moves to the right on a host of issues, some of its most prominent leaders are suddenly softening their stands--both in style and substance--on the one subject dearest to the hearts of social conservatives: abortion.

In their early engagements, the cast of 1996 Republican presidential contenders is striking pointedly moderate notes on the subject. While still describing themselves as anti-abortion, none of the leading GOP contenders are promising a crusade to roll back abortion rights--and even potential candidates such as conservative commentator Patrick J. Buchanan are offering olive branches to Republicans who favor legalized abortion.

“In terms of the candidates, there is no question . . . they’ve all made their decision to leave it behind,” said conservative activist Jeff Bell, a strong opponent of abortion. “But I would add that it hasn’t been all that easy to leave behind.”

In this attempt to lower the temperature on the abortion debate, many analysts see an effort by the leading GOP candidates to present a more moderate image on social issues and to keep the focus on other concerns--particularly the size of government and values-related issues apart from abortion, such as welfare and crime.

“The press is dying for there to be a fight about abortion,” said Mike Murphy, the senior strategist for Lamar Alexander, the former Tennessee governor and education secretary who is expected to announce his candidacy Tuesday. “But fundamentally, the issue in the presidential race will get down to a wider vision for America.”

In fact, abortion remains a critical and contentious issue within the GOP coalition.

Most leading Republicans remain personally opposed to abortion. Republican congressional resistance to President Clinton’s nomination of Dr. Henry W. Foster Jr. as surgeon general is motivated primarily by his record of performing abortions.

Of the half a dozen most serious candidates for the GOP nomination, only Sen. Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania moderate, is an unqualified supporter of legal abortion. And bitter abortion fights still may erupt over the Republican platform or the naming of a vice presidential candidate in 1996--and perhaps even sooner if a potentially higher-profile abortion-rights candidate, such as Gov. Pete Wilson of California or Gov. William F. Weld of Massachusetts, joins the race.

But for now, the key players in the 1996 struggle are largely treating abortion as a settled issue and downplaying the prospect of changing the existing legal framework protecting it.

Even a conservative such as Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, who announced his candidacy Friday, said in a recent interview with the Boston Herald that he would not seek to overturn the Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision guaranteeing the right to abortion. Likewise Alexander, who has said that states should be permitted to limit access to abortions, said last weekend that he would not support a constitutional amendment to overturn Roe vs. Wade.

The apparent turn toward the center on abortion ironically traces back to a conference of conservatives earlier this month. At a meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference, Ralph Reed, the influential executive director of Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition, drew what many party leaders interpreted as a line in the sand.

Reed declared that the powerful coalition of religious conservatives would not support a GOP ticket that includes a presidential or vice presidential candidate who supports abortion rights. That hurdle would rule out such potential candidates as Wilson or New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman.

“Pro-life and pro-family voters . . . will not support a party . . . which has a national ticket or a platform that does not share Ronald Reagan’s belief in the sanctity of life,” Reed said.

He said he was not issuing an ultimatum to the Republicans but rather offering “a cautionary word of advice from a good friend” that “the way to gain the continued support of a growing and influential voting bloc is by remaining unequivocally pro-family and pro-life.”

Whatever Reed’s intent, in the days after his statement all of the leading Republican candidates moved quickly to declare their independence from the pressure to name an anti-abortion running mate. “I don’t think there should be a litmus test,” said Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.). “We need to try to bring people together.”

Gramm has a perfect lifetime voting record from anti-abortion groups. But he also refused to commit to naming an anti-abortion running mate if he wins the nomination. And in his remarks to the Boston Herald, Gramm said that legislatively, “the only abortion issue (that) is on the table is taxpayer funding.”

Aides said Gramm has not challenged the accuracy of the quotes in the interview.

Even Buchanan, the conservative firebrand whose first event in New Hampshire this year was an anti-abortion rally, said at a Granite State party dinner last Sunday that while “we will remain a pro-life party . . . we’re not closing the door on any Republicans.”

All of these remarks are sufficiently nuanced that they are open to conflicting interpretations.

Reed, for instance, insisted he sees no backing-away on abortion: “Every single one of the front-runners . . . identify themselves as pro-life, and I think that is a victory for the pro-life movement in itself.”

As for Gramm’s surprising declaration that he would not seek to overturn Roe vs. Wade, Reed said he viewed those comments largely as a statement of “political reality” that the President cannot do much to prohibit abortion “until we get a different (high) court.”

But veteran Republican consultant Roger Stone, an adviser to Specter, said he believes that the candidates who are downplaying their opposition to abortion are trying to have it both ways--signaling empathy to anti-abortion activists while reassuring moderates that they won’t push their beliefs too far.

“All of the candidates save (Specter) believe you have to toe the line on abortion to get nominated,” Stone said, “but if you hew too closely to it, you can’t get elected.”

It’s clear that at the moment, the potential candidate most eager to talk about abortion is Specter--who is basing his campaign largely on a call to remove the anti-abortion language from next year’s GOP platform. At the other edge of the debate, former State Department official Alan Keyes and Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove)--neither of whom have generated significant support--are emphasizing opposition to abortion in their appeals.

Exactly how long the contenders in the middle can keep the issue muted remains to be seen. Among Republicans overall, opinion is closely divided on abortion: A Times Poll last fall found 44% of Republicans oppose the legal right to abortion while 42% support it.

But anti-abortion activists are a key segment in the narrower universe of partisans who vote in Republican primaries. GOP pollster Bill McInturff, whose firm is doing work for Dole, said that one out of four Republican primary voters describe themselves as “born-again” Christians who attend church at least once a week--and the vast majority of them are strongly opposed to abortion.

“We should interpret what Ralph (Reed) said as a yellow flag,” McInturff said. “You can push these people to bend a little bit . . . but you cannot ask them to go one bridge too far.”