Abortion the Issue Bush Hopes Will Go Away

By LAURENCE I. BARRETT WASHINGTON

Though George Bush privately viewed last week's Supreme Court decision on abortion as a political reprieve, his sense of relief will be temporary. The ruling that merely dented the 1973 Roe v. Wade doctrine instead of demolishing it left the President squirming on a barbed-wire fence. His opponents will do all they can to keep him there.

True, the damage would have been more immediate if Roe v. Wade had been overturned, the outcome Bush nominally seeks. That would have outraged pro- choice voters, many of whom supported Bush in 1988 despite his desire to outlaw abortion in most cases. The ardent pro-life faction, an important part of Bush's core constituency, is also disgruntled. It complains that a court controlled by Reagan-Bush appointees has not done away with Roe. Caught between the two groups, Bush had to speak softly. Yes, he approved that part of the court's ruling that allows states to impose new restrictions on abortion. No, he would not base his next court selection on the nominee's abortion views, "because that would be a litmus test . . . and I don't want that." Yet the 1988 G.O.P. platform promised that standard, and the 1992 version will probably do the same.

What Bush really wants is for the dispute to disappear. "Anything that raises the abortion issue's profile," says an adviser, "is a problem for us." With Congress poised to pass an abortion-rights bill called the Freedom of Choice Act, that profile will remain high. The vulnerability, which Bill Clinton tried to exploit last week and which also could help Ross Perot, springs from the issue's new political math. When Roe v. Wade seemed to guarantee access to abortion, the pro-life side mustered most of the electoral passion. Though a minority in the country for decades, those adamantly opposed to abortion tended to base their ballot on that one issue more often than pro- choice partisans. Even then, abortion had slight impact on presidential races because other national concerns outweighed it.

The legal assault on abortion rights in the Reagan-Bush years has changed that equation. Since 1989, Time/CNN polls have indicated that one-third of Americans would vote against antiabortion politicians "regardless of the candidate's position on other issues." But less than a quarter of the - electorate would vote against a proabortion-rights candidate solely because of that stance. Some of Bush's advisers dismiss these figures as misleading. His pollster, Fred Steeper, argues that nearly all voters who will cast their ballots only on the abortion issue made up their minds long ago. In this group, the liberals' edge amounts "only to a percentage point or two," Steeper says. But in a three-way race, every point is critical. Furthermore, Perot's presence gives moderates and independents a refuge short of voting Democratic.

Bush, a moderate on abortion before he embraced the Reagan philosophy 12 years ago, cannot switch back. Another reversal would shatter his support among right-wing voters crucial to his re-election. But he needs centrists like Carol Daniels, 56, a former schoolteacher from Captiva, Fla., who says she was "born a Republican and have been a Republican all my life." Daniels hates being a single-issue voter, but she hates Bush's abortion stand even more. "I'll not vote for him," she says firmly.

Congresswoman Susan Molinari, a New York City Republican with a heavily Catholic constituency, notes that even older voters are increasingly militant on the pro-choice side. Though Molinari's father, who held her House seat for 10 years, was pro-life, like a few other Republicans, she plans to vote for the Freedom of Choice Act, which would restore by legislative means the full intent of Roe v. Wade. It will not become law this year because its proponents cannot get the two-thirds majority needed to override Bush's veto. But the fight over it will keep abortion in the headlines.

Early in the campaign, Clinton did not plan to stress abortion or other emotional issues such as school prayer. He wanted to avoid the appearance of catering to "special interests," including feminists. But now Clinton must scrape for every faction, large or small. As the only one of the three candidates favoring the pending bill and promising to appoint pro-choice judges to the Supreme Court, Clinton hopes to stand apart from his rivals.

Perot is more cautious. Though he contends that "it's the woman's choice," his disparagement of those who breed "like rabbits" mollifies some traditionalists for whom abortion equals moral decay. But his opposition to government interference in women's lives appeases some moderate pro-choice partisans. In a debate that polarizes opinion into extremes, Perot, the political apprentice, is bidding for the serene middle ground where most + voters are found. That is another reason Bush wishes Perot -- and the abortion issue -- would just go away.