ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, June 7, 1996 TAG: 9606070073
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
While vowing to maintain the Republican Party's anti-abortion principle, Bob Dole said Thursday he wants the GOP platform to include a ``declaration of tolerance'' welcoming those who favor abortion rights.
``Our convention must reflect not only our strong pro-life convictions, but a decent regard for the opinions of those who disagree,'' Dole declared in saying flatly for the first time that he wanted to modify the platform language. ``This is not compromise, it is civility.''
Dole's statement is certain to provoke an outcry from some anti-abortion leaders, including primary rival Pat Buchanan, the only 1996 Republican candidate who has yet to endorse Dole. Dole clinched the GOP nomination in March. Buchanan and his top aides have promised to resist any changes beyond condemnation of President Clinton's recent veto of legislation banning certain late-term abortions.
Another question is whether the gesture will be enough to quash efforts by abortion rights supporters within the GOP who have vowed to fight to remove the anti-abortion plank altogether. This group includes the Republican governors of California, New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts - all Dole supporters.
Trying to quiet objections from anti-abortion forces even as he proposed amending the platform, Dole noted that the document has had anti-abortion language since 1980, including a call for a constitutional amendment banning abortion, and said: ``In the 1996 platform I will not seek or accept a retreat from those commitments.'' And aides said Dole was not insisting that the ``declaration of tolerance'' be added to the existing 98-word anti-abortion plank and suggested it might be put elsewhere, perhaps in a preamble to the document. That decision rests with the platform committee.
Some Buchanan allies had feared Dole would try to remove the language calling for a constitutional amendment as part of an effort to court voters who support abortion rights, particularly moderate, suburban women.
Instead, Dole called for a return to the formula used in 1980, when Ronald Reagan first had the anti-abortion language placed in the platform. After calling for a constitutional amendment banning abortion, the 1980 platform said, ``we recognize differing views on this question among Americans in general - and in our own party.''
That ``big tent'' language was removed by anti-abortion forces in 1984, when they had a stronger voice at the convention than four years earlier. The same platform was readopted in 1988 and again in 1992. The 1996 platform committee would have to propose any changes to the full 1996 convention, which is being held in San Diego in August.
LENGTH: Medium: 55 linesby CNB