Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 14, 1995 TAG: 9502140126
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
``There are extremists within the right-to-life movement who now have hooked the Republican Party in Congress by the nose, and they're dragging them around,'' White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry said Monday.
Vice President Al Gore echoed the tough line. ``We're not going to let the extremists win,'' he said.
In a hastily arranged trip to Nashville, Tenn., Monday, Gore accompanied the nominee, Dr. Henry Foster, to an impoverished housing project where Foster's ``I Have A Future'' program operates. The program urges teens to abstain from sex and builds self-esteem as a way to delay pregnancy.
President Clinton said Monday that he expects Foster to be confirmed ``by a fair-minded Senate.''
Foster's nomination has been jeopardized by his conflicting statements about how many abortions he has done, revelations that he led research on an abortion drug, and disclosure that he sterilized severely mentally retarded women in the 1970s. Although such involuntary sterilizations are no longer permitted, the White House and doctors have said they were an acceptable medical practice at the time.
While most presidential nominees are rarely heard from before their confirmation hearings, Foster has done a national television interview, visited with some members of the House, given a speech at George Washington University Medical School, and written an op-ed article in Monday's Washington Post. He will call on senators in the middle of the week.
The Senate plans to hold hearings on Foster's nomination in mid-March. ``We have our work cut out for us,'' McCurry conceded.
In taking on anti-abortion groups, the White House appears to be trying to shift attention from Foster's conflicting statements by driving a wedge in the Republican Party between supporters of abortion rights and abortion opponents.
Kate Michelman, president of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, said: ``It is appropriate for the White House to be calling attention to the fact that the anti-choice Republican leadership has finally shown its collaboration with the national right-wing groups.''
``For McCurry to make that kind of attack, obviously sanctioned by the chief of staff and presumably the president, shows a lack of an ear for the Republican caucus in the Senate,'' said GOP political consultant Glenn Bolger. ``It fails to pay any attention to the concerns of pro-choice Republican senators who have raised their doubts not about the abortion issue but the honesty standard.''
by CNB