ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, August 9, 1996 TAG: 9608090024
SECTION: EDITORAL PAGE: A-12 EDITION: METRO
BOB DOLE'S comeuppance on abortion, delivered by Republican Party platform-writers, looks a lot like chickens come home to roost.
The presidential candidate had wanted, still wants, a gesture toward millions of Republicans who don't support a constitutional amendment banning abortion. But Dole himself continues to support such a ban, and continues to owe a political debt to religious conservatives who have amassed major clout within the party.
Dole probably has avoided a messy floor flight at the convention, but only at the cost of public capitulation to the Christian Right. Its representatives demanded that any hint of tolerance for varying views on abortion rights be banished to a platform appendix. They got what they wanted.
And why not? If you believe there's no difference between abortion and infanticide, it's hard to justify a party welcome-mat for baby-killers and their apologists. Dole's dilemma is another reminder that, on abortion, you can't always have it both ways.
After all, Dole's record and express views on abortion - notwithstanding the occasional wink, nod and display of discomfort - are as unambivalent as the platform-writers'.
Not without reason did he win a 100 percent Christian Coalition rating on abortion issues in the Senate. Dole voted for a constitutional amendment to criminalize abortion. He consistently opposed federal funding of it - even for low-income women made pregnant by rape or incest.
Dole voted to bar aid to international family-planning programs. He supported the gag rule that prohibited counseling or referrals of clinic patients for abortion services. He voted to outlaw U.S. servicewomen overseas from obtaining abortions at military hospitals, even at their own expense. He supports a ban on the non-surgical abortion method, RU-486.
Meanwhile, he is often reminded, no doubt, how anti-abortion forces came through for him in two critical moments of his political career.
After his disastrous defeat in the New Hampshire presidential primary this year, the Christian Coalition helped him rebound in South Carolina. In a speech to that state's coalition chapter just before the primary, Dole promised: "I have a flawless record of protecting the unborn and that's not going to change when I become president of the United States."
He went on to say: "Go back and look at the record, and you'll find that when abortion first became a national issue was at my re-election in 1974."
That was the other critical political moment, a year after the Roe vs. Wade decision, when a struggling Dole won re-election by the narrowest of margins - two votes per precinct. He did so, in part, by attacking his physician opponent, Bill Roy, for having performed abortions.
In his biography of Dole, "What It Takes," Richard Ben Cramer describes how the senator spoke at high schools, urging students: "Go home and ask your parents if they know how many abortions Bill Roy has performed." On the Sunday before the election, pro-life supporters distributed thousands of fliers in church parking lots depicting dead babies. The tag line: "Vote Dole."
In this year's presidential contest, Dole's abortion stance cuts the other way. It is widening the gender gap, hurting him in the polls. Yet his difficulties in attempting to distance himself from his record were as predictable as his need to make the attempt. As Rep. Henry Hyde recently noted, "For more than 30 years, Bob Dole's position on the right to life has been clear and unambiguous."
Dole hoped to fudge that position with party-platform maneuvers. But the Christian Right in no uncertain terms reminded him that abortion is a matter of conscience as well as politics.
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