THE NATION : POLITICS : GOP Cite ‘Credibility’ to Mask Abortion Issue

“This is not about abortion,” Senate Majority Leader and Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole of Kansas told a group of GOP fund raisers last week, explaining his opposition to surgeon general nominee Henry W. Foster Jr. “This is about credibility.”

Credibility is Washington-speak. No one seriously questions Foster’s medical qualifications to serve as the nation’s surgeon general. That is why his “credibility” is being questioned, not his ability. His nomination is in trouble because anti-abortion forces have much more clout in the Republican Party than they do in the country as a whole. If anyone’s credibility is on the line, it is Dole’s.

“If Sen. Dole with a Republican majority in the Senate cannot defeat a nominee he opposes, pro-family and pro-life activists have every reason to question his ability to lead and ensure justice for all of its citizens,” Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition, said on Tuesday, as the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee began its hearings on Foster’s nomination.

Foster is a widely respected physician and administrator in Tennessee, whose teen-age pregnancy program was cited as one of President George Bush’s “thousand points of light.” He is not, by all reports, a political man. When his name was first mentioned, he was roundly praised by Tennessee Republicans who knew him, including former governor and presidential candidate Lamar Alexander. They changed their tune when the anti-abortion groups opened fire. Foster, in the words of the Republican committee chair, Nancy Landon Kassebaum, “has been made a pawn in our abortion debates.”

Once Foster was targeted, his life became fair game. This is what happens to controversial nominees--it is one of the reasons decent people shy away from government service. A person’s record, his writings, finances, associations--all are examined by opponents with a fine-toothed comb, looking for inconsistencies, embarrassments, anything to defeat him.

In Foster’s case, they managed to come up with little. The opposition has three elements. As Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) framed it on the opening day of the hearings: “This nominee has demonstrated a careless disregard of facts. In at least three areas--abortion, involuntary sterilization and syphilis experiments--the words of this nominee and the public record are disturbingly at odds.”

The abortion issue relates to the number of legal abortions performed by Foster during his 38-year career. Inexpli- cably, the White House was not prepared for the question when it nominated a gynecologist for the nation’s highest medical office. Foster’s initial response, that he had performed fewer than a dozen legal abortions, later had to be modified based on his review of the record. In fact, in 22 years at Meharry Medical College, he was listed as the physician of record in 39 abortion cases. As Foster explained it at his hearings on Monday, “In my desire to provide instant answers to the barrage of questions coming at me, I spoke without having all the facts at my disposal . . . . There was never any intent to deceive. I had no reason to.”

The involuntary-sterilization issue focuses on an article Foster wrote in 1976, where he states he has “begun to use hysterectomy in patients with severe mental retardation.” Foster acknowledged performing such procedures, which were consistent with “mainstream medicine” at the time.

The “syphilis experiments” refer to a federal study of black men in Tuskegee, Ala., whose illnesses were allowed to go untreated to study the disease’s effects. Foster was told of the study in 1972, and immediately informed health officials so belated treatment could be provided. But the Republicans managed to uncover notes of a local medical society meeting in 1969, when Alabama doctors were supposedly told about the study. Foster responded that he had not attended that meeting; on Tuesday, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, a ranking Democrat on the committee, introduced a birth certificate and sworn statement showing Foster was performing a Caesarean section at the time of the disputed meeting.

What is most striking about the challenge to Foster’s “credibility” is that his commitment to the poor, to minorities, and to women in need is unchallenged--and apparently beside the point for those purporting to be troubled by questions of candor. Are Republicans really opposed to Foster because he didn’t do enough for the black men of Tuskegee?

In the congressional elections of 1994, one-third of the electorate identified themselves as white, evangelical born-again Christians, and 69% of them voted Republican. The Christian Coalition went along with Republican efforts to focus first on the “contract with America.” But they have not given up on abortion--Reed has said his organization will treat abortion as a litmus test in its support of the GOP ticket. Last week, the Christian Coalition ran national ads against Foster.

Meanwhile, Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas, one of Dole’s chief rivals for the GOP nomination, has promised a filibuster of the Foster nomination, increasing the pressure on Dole to deliver a defeat.

Republicans, are by no means unified on abortion. Abortion divides that party in much the same way affirmative action divides Democrats. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), also a candidate for President, in vowing to press for a floor vote on Foster’s nomination, points to surveys showing 70% of Republican voters are pro-choice. Even in New Hampshire, a poll found 53% of Republicans and independents would be more likely to vote for a candidate because he supported abortion rights. Should Dole win the nomination, he will face an electorate that believes performing abortions should not disqualify a man from serving his country.

Four years ago, when Roe vs. Wade seemed on the verge of reversal in the U.S. Supreme Court, abortion was a significant voting issue for the pro-choice majority in this country. The court’s decision to respect Roe, albeit with reservations, and the election of a pro-choice President, moved abortion well down the list of voting issues for most Americans--other than those in the religious right. If Dole succeeds in defeating Foster, he could change that--to his own detriment. Meantime, Foster is the pawn in the presidential game.