Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, May 2, 1995 TAG: 9505040018
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ELLEN GOODMAN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Republican leaders have been left stammering by the prospect that today's confirmation hearings will turn into another party-splintering debacle. Even ardent anti-abortion advocates have chosen to stutter over the three C's rather than stick to the one A.
The fight over Foster's nomination to the surgeon general's post isn't really about abortion, they all insist. It's about Credibility. It's about Character. It's about Controversy. As Ann Lewis of Planned Parenthood puts it, ``I haven't heard so many transparent excuses since the dog ate the homework.''
Last December Joycelyn Elders had to turn in her surgeon general's uniform after she gave the impression of appearing to be seeming to be saying that it wasn't a bad idea to teach masturbation in school.
Henry Foster was her conservative replacement. He was the safe, consensus candidate for the job, the picture-perfect profile of a gray-haired doc who once delivered babies of poor black women barred from white hospitals and ran programs to prevent teen pregnancy.
The 61-year-old ob-gyn had also - shock and amazement - performed abortions. That outraged the hard-core troops who want to make doctors pariahs, and made some politicians nervous. But when the number of abortions was called into question - How many did he do? How many did he say he did? - many in Congress latched onto the numbers game like a political life raft.
The issue wasn't really abortion, they swore, paddling as fast as they could away from this hot issue, it was Credibility. Why, they would have been just as outraged if a nominee had miscalculated how many tonsillectomies he performed.
When that didn't quite wash, the usual suspects began floating reports of forced sterilizations, and publicizing accusations - roundly denied - that Dr. Foster approved of the infamous Tuskegee experiment that left black men untreated for syphilis. The issue wasn't abortion, it was Character.
Finally, of course, in the way of Washington, all these charges rolled up into the one killer charge. The people who created a controversy now insist that Dr. Foster is disqualified because he is too Controversial.
In fact, Dr. Foster's nomination has always been in trouble because of the politics of abortion. Emphasis on politics. His views aren't too divisive for the American public who largely join in his wish ``that it be safe, legal and rare.'' It's too divisive for the Republican Party, which cobbles together a coalition of people who call doctors ``abortionists'' and people who believe in keeping the government out of private decisions.
Robert Dole, for one, has been forthright about his deep desire to get Dr. Foster on the next available plane back to Tennessee. The last thing the candidate for president wants is a full debate and vote on the Senate floor. The first thing he wants is for this nomination to die in committee.
So the fate of the Foster nomination now falls in the lap of Nancy Kassebaum, the chair of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee. On the one hand, Kassebaum is the chief supporter of fellow Kansan Bob Dole. On the other hand, she's a senator with a carefully tended reputation as an independent, a moderate and an abortion-rights supporter.
But in some ways, these reports have been exaggerated. After all, she voted for Clarence Thomas as well as Robert Bork. She voted in favor of the Hyde Amendment banning federal funds for abortion except in cases of rape or incest. In some years, she won a higher rating from pro-life groups than pro-choice groups.
The C-word that has Kassebaum stammering is Clinton. She is said to believe that the president deliberately planned this nomination to split her party. (If only the White House were that organized.) But in an expected close committee vote, the power to get the Foster nomination onto the Senate floor rests on her actions. So does her own reputation for fairness.
When all is said and done, Dr. Foster is another in a line of private citizens who have been escorted onto the public stage and walked right into a political propeller. As surgeon general, he wants to lead a national campaign against teen-age pregnancy - a campaign that would make abortion less necessary. He's targeted by people who would rather make abortion impossible.
For months, he's watched his life's work twisted into some unrecognizable shape. At the very least he deserves a trip to the Senate floor and a full vote. Come to think of it, maybe this isn't about abortion. Maybe it's about another word: Fairness.
- The Boston Globe
by CNB