
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, June 10, 1994                   TAG: 9406170081
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                  LENGTH: Medium

PARTY MAY SOFTEN ITS STANCE ON ABORTION

REPUBLICANS AND ABORTIONS have never quite mixed. But now some party leaders fear the platform's ban on abortions has alienated many voters.

Conservative Republicans determined to recapture the White House in 1996 are proposing to soften the party's all-out stand against abortion. They would kick decision-making back to state legislatures.

The compromise circulated by the Project for the Republican Future, a conservative think tank, captures what seems to be an emerging party line: It's useless to keep calling for a total ban on abortion, so let's move on.

Prominent party members like Dan Quayle and Pat Robertson are revising the absolutist anti-abortion declarations of the past. Just this week, Virginia Republican Marshall Coleman undercut his probable independent Senate bid by switching his abortion position for the second time.

Voters often consider the consistency of a candidate's views on abortion more important than the views themselves.

The last Republican platform called for a constitutional ban on all abortions. By contrast, the new proposal seeks "maximum feasible legal protection for the unborn."

"The 1992 platform language is not tenable," said Bill Kristol, chairman of the Project for the Republican Future. "This is simply an attempt to suggest what I think would be appropriate language not just for the platform but for candidates to use in discussing the issue."

He recommends that the GOP denounce the Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion, endorse state efforts to restrict the procedure, reject public money to pay for it, and "recognize the need for an extensive and ongoing process of public persuasion."

Kristol, formerly Vice President Quayle's chief of staff, denies any attempt to paper over profound differences that spilled onto the convention floor in 1992. "I'm not trying to resolve the unresolvable," he said.

At this point his exercise is raising hackles even higher on both sides.

"I can't see that there's anything for Republicans to gain by doing this. If they press this one, the right-to-lifers will take a walk," said Virginia state Del. Robert Marshall, R-Manassas, a spokesman for the American Life League.

The very first line of the suggested compromise - "We are a pro-life party" - is anathema to abortion-rights Republicans. They're also loath to rely on state legislatures.

"It was a very bleak, sad picture when the states were in charge. We had back-alley abortions, the death of women," said Mary Dent Crisp, president of the National Republican Coalition for Choice.

A poll of GOP activists last year found almost as many who called themselves "pro-choice" as "pro-life,'' and only 7 percent who favored a total abortion ban. Party officials also recognize they must attract younger, professional, moderate women to win elections.

Keywords:
POLITICS

by CNB