IS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, despite its pro-life platform and rhetoric, becoming operationally pro-choice on abortion? Let’s look at some recent evidence.
In Washington, pro-life forces are dispirited, all but certain that any legislative progress they make against abortion on Capitol Hill will be negated by President Clinton. Republican congressional leaders are thus less and less inclined to press the issue. Among GOP presidential candidates, opposition to abortion is universal, but few relish discussing the issue. Texas governor George W. Bush, the frontrunner, noted disapprovingly the number of questions he’d been asked about abortion at a recent press conference. Former vice president Dan Quayle assured potential campaign donors in New York that he wouldn’t lead a crusade against abortion. And Bush and Quayle are two of the stronger pro-lifers in the presidential field, both favoring, at least nominally, a constitutional amendment banning abortion.
So for now, the answer to the question is, yes, Republicans are operationally pro-choice. They aren’t willing to wage a serious fight against legal abortion. This might change if the party wins the White House in 2000, but even then it might not. Pro-life forces gain only when the issue is raised and debated noisily in public. That’s the lesson of the struggle to outlaw partial-birth abortions. Clinton’s vetoes have kept a ban from becoming law, yet at the same time there has been a small but measurable shift in public opinion polls against abortion on demand. In a national survey in January by the pro-abortion Center for Gender Equality, 53 percent of American women said abortion should be illegal except in cases of rape or incest, or to save the mother’s life. And in UCLA’s annual poll of college freshmen, support for legal abortion has dropped from 65 percent in 1990 to 51 percent now.
“There’s a paradox,” insists Jeffrey Bell, the chief strategist for Gary Bauer’s presidential campaign. “The voting base of the Republican party has never been more pro-life. Never have more elected officials been pro-life, and you don’t have a pro-abortion wing in the party. On the other hand, there’s this feeling among people at the top level of the party that [opposition to abortion] should be just a formality.” Bell, of course, has a vested interest in the abortion issue. His candidate, Bauer, wants to make abortion a high priority.
Against this is an army of Republican political consultants who are always eager to have abortion downplayed. Many agree with the late Lee Atwater, the Republican national chairman who died in 1991, that any discussion of abortion is harmful to the GOP candidate. Nearly every consultant I’ve talked to in the past several years believes that Republicans should only pay lip service to the pro-life position, and even that as vaguely as possible. Nothing more. “There isn’t a consultant who wants to deal with this issue, because they haven’t found the silver bullet Republican response that works,” says Rick Santorum, the Pennsylvania Republican who’s become the Senate’s leading pro-lifer. “There isn’t one.”
The leeriness of the political pros prompted a sharp disagreement last fall between Mark Neumann, the GOP candidate for the Senate in Wisconsin, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Neumann insisted on airing a statewide TV ad that attacked his Democratic foe, Sen. Russ Feingold, for backing partial-birth abortion. Committee strategists argued this would alarm prochoice voters who might otherwise stay home, and that Neumann could arouse pro-life voters more discreetly by direct mail or Christian radio. Neumann lost narrowly, but he claimed vindication on the abortion ad. “Did it help us?” said Neumann. “It helped us immeasurably.” Actually, the abortion tilt was measurable. An exit poll found that of the roughly 20 percent of voters whose top issue was abortion, four out of five favored Neumann. But the NRSC strategists claim Neumann won only pro-life votes he’d have gotten anyway, while igniting a huge turnout in liberal Madison that hurt his candidacy.
How would most Republican consultants have their candidates handle abortion? The way Jim Gilmore did in 1997 in his winning campaign for governor of Virginia. Gilmore sought to satisfy pro-lifers without provoking pro-choice voters. His view was that abortion should be legal in the first 8 to 12 weeks. “I won’t support late term abortion,” he said, but added: “No one’s going to ban abortions.” He didn’t say whether he wanted a complete ban on abortions after 12 weeks or to the overturning of the Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion overturned. Gilmore’s position seemed to anesthetize the abortion issue, and he was able to focus on cutting the state tax on cars, a Republican issue.
Now, most of the GOP presidential candidates would like to follow Gilmore’s path. When he announced, Bush endorsed keeping a “pro-life tenor” in the Republican party. Then, when criticized, he renewed his support for a constitutional ban — but not now, because the country isn’t ready for that. Elizabeth Dole calls herself pro-life, but Newsweek reported she won’t back a constitutional amendment. Lamar Alexander said on the Fox News Channel that he wants “to move state by state to change the laws and the culture so there will be fewer abortions.” But he declined to call for reversing Roe v. Wade, which would allow states to ban abortion. Sen. John McCain of Arizona says he’s opposed to abortion, but he hardly stresses the issue. Rep. John Kasich also says he’s prolife, but urges Republicans to lower their voice when talking about it.
Oddly enough, the National Right to Life Committee put out a statement last week defending Bush and agreeing that the country isn’t ready for an out-right ban. “This is true because it takes two-thirds of both the House and Senate to pass a constitutional amendment and three-fourths of the state legislatures to ratify it,” the NRL said. “There is nowhere near that level of support in Congress at this time.”
A legislative effort like the one Bush proposes “to save the lives we can in the meantime, such as banning partial birth abortions and required parental notification before abortions are performed on minors, is entirely appropriate,” said NRL’s Carol Long Tobias. Pro-lifers who’ve criticized Bush — Bauer is one — should stop and prod the media to “give Al Gore’s and the Democratic party’s position and record on abortion the same attention . . . it does Republican pro-life candidates like George W. Bush,” the NRL statement said.
Not much chance of that. Reporters, monolithically pro-choice, are obsessed with covering Republican spats on abortion. And since Democratic pro-lifers rarely speak up, there’s no visible dissent for reporters to cover there. Republican political operatives would love the press to find no abortion story in their party either. The way to achieve that, they think, is for all the Republican candidates to shut up on the issue. Given the prominence in the race of Bauer, Forbes, and Buchanan, don’t bet on it.
Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
