Bush Tries to Avoid Veto of Abortion Expansion

WASHINGTON — 

President Bush sought Friday to avoid vetoing a bill funding more Medicaid abortions, dramatically underscoring the extent to which anti-abortion politicians across the country have been thrown on the defensive by a mobilization of abortion-rights activists.

“I’m not looking for any conflict on this,” Bush told a news conference in disclosing that aides are negotiating with congressional leaders on a funding provision that he staunchly opposed in last year’s presidential campaign.

Sources said that Bush’s efforts to temper the provision met initial resistance from Democrats and that he might wind up vetoing the bill in the first round of a long fight.

But Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove), a leading abortion foe in Congress, said that Bush still hopes to strike a deal in a subsequent round of negotiations on a $156.7-billion appropriations bill for the Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services.

The measure would provide public funds for abortions in cases of rape and incest, as long as they were “promptly reported” to police and health clinics.

Sources said that Bush, who until now has supported government funding of abortions only when the life of the mother is endangered, would support the rape-and-incest expansion if time limits were placed on the reporting period and if only reports to police are required.

Political observers called Bush’s retreat the latest evidence of a major change in the national political climate that has occurred since the Supreme Court last July upheld a Missouri law restricting access to abortion. The ruling seriously eroded a landmark 1973 decision that made abortion legal.

“For the first time, politicians are frightened by the threat of punishment on the pro-choice side,” said William Schneider, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a political analyst for The Times.

“Right-to-life politicians are on the defensive everywhere because the pro-choice constituency has become activated by the Supreme Court ruling,” Schneider said. “The bottom line is you cannot take people’s rights away in this country without a ferocious reaction.”

In a stunning turnabout, the House voted this week to reverse a policy enacted every year since 1981 limiting federal funding of abortions to cases in which the mother’s life was endangered. The House expanded the policy to include rape and incest.

In New Jersey and Virginia, Republican gubernatorial candidates James Courter and Marshall Coleman have modified their anti-abortion stances since Democratic opponents attacked them extensively in media advertisements.

In Florida, an ostensibly conservative Legislature speedily axed all four restrictive abortion measures sought by Republican Gov. Bob Martinez in a special session this week.

And, in recent state legislative races in California and South Carolina in which abortion was a burning issue, abortion rights candidates have defeated anti-abortion opponents.

“The Republican Party is making a long-term mistake (in) embracing the pro-life position,” said John Deardourff, a consultant to Republican candidates who describes himself as a supporter of a woman’s right to choose abortion. “Our candidates may soon begin feeling the negative impact of that at the polls.”

Deardourff added that Bush is “between a rock and a hard place” on the Medicaid funding issue. “If he vetoes this bill, it may please the pro-life forces but it will be extremely offensive to pro-choice women in both parties.”

Abortion rights leader Kate Michelman, jubilant that “even George Bush is hearing the pro-choice majority,” declared that “a new breeze is blowing.” She said that his shift is a clear sign that “politicians are going to have to take heed and understand that, if they are out of touch, they may be out of office.”

Michelman, executive director of the National Abortion Rights Action League, declared that polls have shown “tremendous movement to our side” since the Supreme Court’s July ruling.

“We in the pro-choice community (had) not really voted on this issue” before the ruling, she said. But now that many see a threat to their right to choose an abortion, “we are becoming much more of a single-issue voting bloc because the stakes are so high.”

Anti-abortion leaders, scoffing at claims of a major swing in public sentiment, insisted that their cause will prevail.

“While the pro-abortion movement is trying to sell a hype now that they have great momentum, quite frankly the relative strength of the groups hasn’t altered much this year,” said David O’Steen, executive director of the National Right to Life Committee. “In fact, in terms of our electoral position, we have done quite well. Pro-lifers have won 7 out of 10 legislative races.”

“This is going to be a long, drawn-out battle,” said Susan Smith, the group’s associate legislative director, on “John McLaughlin’s One on One” television program. “I’m encouraged by what’s going on in Pennsylvania, where both sides agree that the pro-life legislation that’s been introduced (in the Legislature) is going to sail through.”

Political analyst Charlie Cook said that the future could resemble a checkerboard--with abortion-rights and anti-abortion forces winning some and losing some--or it could resemble falling dominoes.

“If a couple of more states in a row go pro-choice, you really could have a situation where fear is thrown into the hearts of a lot of previously pro-life legislators, who could cut and run,” he said.

But Cook suggested that “Democratic pro-choice candidates need to be careful. They risk disaffecting some members of their base. Pro-life voters tend to be at the lower end of the economic and educational ladder, which by definition means Democratic Party base.”

He said that the abortion rights issue probably would work best when a candidate such as Douglas Wilder, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in Virginia, is behind in the polls “and needs to throw a long bomb. At least for now, it appears to have connected.”

In recent weeks Wilder, an abortion-rights advocate, has attacked GOP opponent Coleman for his strong opposition to abortion. The strategy has been credited with Wilder’s dramatic resurgence in public opinion polls.