THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, May 4, 1996 TAG: 9605040400
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
As Republicans gird for a convention battle over abortion, Christian Coalition executive director Ralph Reed said Friday that he would accept changes in the party's platform and ``reluctantly'' support an abortion ban that made exceptions in cases of rape, incest and danger to the mother's life.
Reed's comments, in a telephone interview, put him squarely at odds with other anti-abortion forces within the Republican Party, who view any modification in the platform as a retreat.
His remarks appeared likely to create maneuvering room for Sen. Bob Dole, the presumptive Republican nominee, should he seek to soften the platform's language to appeal to an increasingly vocal wing of the party that advocates women's right to choose abortion.
The Christian Coalition does not endorse candidates, but Reed is widely viewed on the Christian right as a Dole supporter.
Reed insisted that he was not changing his stance on abortion and that he would not accept a weakened Republican position. ``But we have no hard-line opposition to someone proposing different wording that conveys the same principle,'' he said.
While the fight over abortion often seems like a clash of extremes, nuance is crucial to those who participate in the battle. Indeed, just Friday a group of anti-abortion leaders summoned reporters to demand that the platform's language remain intact, because the slightest change would signal a retreat.
``No words can be changed, no words can be added,'' said Angela ``Bay'' Buchanan, the chairman of her brother Patrick's lingering presidential campaign. ``There is no compromise, there is no negotiating, there is no appeasement.''
The Chesapeake-based Christian Coalition has 1.7 million members, and Reed is widely seen as one of the most influential leaders on the Christian right. His approval is assiduously courted by candidates.
Reed declined an invitation from Buchanan and other anti-abortion leaders to appear at Friday's briefing.
Reed maintained that wording was not important. ``I'm just trying to make the point that what we're wedded to is the principle of the sanctity of life,'' he said.
But he presented a starkly different interpretation of the party's existing platform, insisting that ``the current langauge is really silent on whether there are exceptions'' for rape, incest and the mother's life.
Reed acknowledged that the platform is seen as permitting no exceptions, but he said, ``It's been taken to mean that quite erroneously.''
The first two sentences of the abortion plank in the Republican platform read: ``We believe the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We therefore reaffirm our support for a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution, and we endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to unborn children.''
Other abortion opponents view that language as ruling out exceptions. Some argue that aborting a fetus conceived in a rape or incest amounts to punishing the fetus for the parent's sin. MEMO: Related Christian Coalition story on page B5.
by CNB