President’s 1st Step May Be Telling One

On his first workday, President Bush waded into a volatile issue that could shape the direction of his presidency.

Some saw his executive order banning U.S. funds to international family planning groups that use their money for abortions or abortion counseling as the first step in a campaign to bring about what he calls “a culture of life.” But others viewed it as a move intended merely to appease the conservative base of his party, which worked so hard for his election.

Could the issue turn into the kind of raging controversy over gays in the military that engulfed the first days of Bill Clinton’s presidency? Clinton had said during his 1992 campaign that gays should be allowed to serve openly in the armed services. The matter became a full-blown political imbroglio before the fledgling administration was ready to deal with it and resulted in a policy--”don’t ask, don’t tell”--that Clinton said was unsatisfactory before he left office.

But the abortion order fulfilled a longtime Bush campaign pledge and it clearly heartened the thousands of protesters who gathered here on Monday to mark the 28th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that ensured a woman’s right to seek an abortion. And it sent a chill through abortion rights organizations around the world.

The ban aroused relatively mild outrage in the United States, partly because it was widely expected--but perhaps also because it affects only poor and disenfranchised women in faraway countries.

Abortion Issues Key Test for Bush

But where Bush goes from here on an array of incendiary abortion-related issues with a direct effect on American women could well determine whether he experiences a tempestuous relationship with Capitol Hill that hampers his ability to find common ground on major issues in a closely divided Congress.

Among the many looming issues are “partial-birth” abortion; stem-cell research, which involves the use of human embryos; legislation requiring greater emphasis on abstinence education rather than sex education for the nation’s youth; and a review of the use of the so-called abortion drug, RU-486.

But, if Bush can keep the abortion issue somewhat on the margins--by pleasing the Republican Party’s influential right-to-life wing while avoiding an all-out fight with abortion rights advocates--he may well succeed in his own version of political triangulation: working with both parties in the same way that Clinton had fine-tuned in recent years.

In his first daily briefing Monday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer was bombarded with questions about why Bush chose on his first workday to reverse what has been policy through almost all of the Clinton presidency--a move that clearly would detract from his intended weeklong focus on education reform.

For instance, in between sessions with congressional Republicans and Democratic Party elders, Bush met with “successful reading providers.” But it was abortion and not education that dominated the news out of the White House.

Fleischer insisted that Bush’s ban on funding is not controversial and thus did not detract from the message of the day, saying that there is “widespread bipartisan support” for the ban.

In fact, the issue has been the subject of annual disputes for more than a decade.

When Clinton took office in 1993, he lifted a far-reaching ban imposed by President Reagan in 1984. That ban had barred all federal funds to international family planning groups that use their own money to provide abortions or engage in abortion-related activities such as counseling or lobbying for abortion rights laws.

Clinton’s executive order lifting the ban held until 1999.

But then he reluctantly signed legislation--passed by the Republican-dominated Congress--that reimposed the ban by law. In exchange, Congress agreed to pay back dues to the United Nations, something Clinton desperately wanted.

Subsequent legislation last year restored $425 million in annual funding for international family planning agencies. But the bill required that none of the money could be spent until Feb. 15 of this year--after the presidential election and inauguration.

Bush’s Path Is Called ‘Foreboding’

The assumption was that if Vice President Al Gore won, the funds would be disbursed. And if Bush prevailed, he would cut off the funds.

“We had anticipated that he would reinstate this policy,” said Marty Dannenfelser, a spokesman for the Family Research Council, a conservative group that focuses on family values issues.

Susan Cohen, a lawyer at the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a nonpartisan reproductive health research group based in New York, expressed a concern widely shared among abortion rights advocates.

“I don’t know what road this is taking the president down, but the direction they are going in is certainly foreboding,” she said.

“The step they’ve taken this time is the easy one in the sense that it doesn’t affect the rights of Americans, and I can see that makes sense from their point of view. But the signal it sends is that they don’t think it’s important that women overseas have access to the same information that women have here.”

Referring to both Bush’s executive order and his meeting with senior Democrats, former Rep. Peter H. Kostmayer (D-Pa.), now head of Zero Population Growth, said the president seemed to be trying to have it both ways.

“It seems like it’s an effort here to have a two-track policy: one track to appear bipartisan and the other track, the real track, to change laws,” Kostmayer said. “Talk is cheap. So are photo ops. What really counts is law.”

On that score, Bush’s true colors will be revealed fairly soon.

“There will be a number of pro-life bills that will be introduced in Congress and that will find their way to his desk, and we would expect him to sign them,” Dannenfelser said.

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Times staff writer Janet Hook and Kathleen Howe also contributed to this story.