TOP STORY: ELECTIONS ‘96: Foes and advocates of abortion rights differ on Dole move

c. 1996 Religion News Service WASHINGTON (RNS)-In the end, Sen. Bob Dole pleased almost no one. Dole Thursday (June 6) reaffirmed his loyalty to the GOP platform, which calls for a constitutional amendment outlawing abortion. But the Republican presidential hopeful also demanded that the party tolerate dissent over the anti-abortion plank. Rather than calm the […]

c. 1996 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)-In the end, Sen. Bob Dole pleased almost no one.

Dole Thursday (June 6) reaffirmed his loyalty to the GOP platform, which calls for a constitutional amendment outlawing abortion. But the Republican presidential hopeful also demanded that the party tolerate dissent over the anti-abortion plank.


Rather than calm the bitter debate over abortion, his words seemed to do nothing more than stir more controversy.

Republican abortion-rights supporters said Dole’s remarks didn’t go far enough to foster genuine openness on the abortion question.”While Sen. Dole took some baby steps in the right direction, it’s not enough,”said Ann Stone, chairman of Republicans for Choice.

Meanwhile, abortion foes regarded his move as criticism of their willingness to tolerate debate.”It is insulting and unacceptable to single out the pro-life plank as the one which should be qualified by appeals to `tolerance’ and `diversity,'”said Phyllis Schlafly, chairman of the Republican National Coalition for Life.

And pro-abortion rights activists outside the party dismissed Dole’s move as”political posturing.””Sen. Dole’s call for tolerance … is a good beginning,”said Ann Thompson Cook, executive director the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, a Washington-based umbrella organization of 40 Jewish, Protestant and other faith groups.”However, by calling for a constitutional ban on all abortions, the Republican party platform simply continues to slam the door on open, tolerant and respectful dialogue.” Not all activists on the abortion front dismissed Dole’s statement.

Gary Bauer, president of American Renewal, an advocacy group that opposes all abortions except when a mother’s life is at stake-welcomed Dole’s reaffirmation of the party’s anti-abortion stance.”Senator Dole has called for tolerance and welcomed all people to the Republican Party,”said Bauer”No one who believes in the sanctity of human life has ever attempted to exclude people from the party.”Bob Dole has now made it clear that he is committed to maintaining the current pro-life language that has been at the heart of the Republican Party agenda for more than 20 years,”Bauer said.

And President Clinton, who believes abortion should be legal, nonetheless praised Dole, saying,”Anything that restores civility in this debate is a positive thing, and I applaud him for it.” In his statement, Dole called for adding a”declaration of tolerance”to the Republican platform that would recognize the divergent views on abortion within the party.

But he said he will”not seek or accept a retreat”from the platform’s call for a constitutional amendment outlawing abortion, and he rejected the call from some abortion-rights supporters that the party platform remain silent on the issue.

Ralph Reed, executive director of the Christian Coalition and a major force in conservative Republican politics, has in the past suggested that the party platform could contain a general declaration of tolerance similar to that suggested by Dole. But Reed has rejected”unfairly singling out the pro-life plank.” Speaking at the Heritage Foundation May 29, Reed said Republicans also hold opposing views on term limits on congressional service,”but we’re not going to have a statement in the pro-term limits plank saying the Republican Party has a diversity of opinion on this issueâÂ?¦. To single out the abortion issue would be a mistake.” Echoing that sentiment, Schlafly said Dole’s”straddling statement”shows that”he is gravely miscalculating the pro-life commitment of the delegates to the Republican National Convention.”We do not want anyone to to believe that our party has waffled on its commitment to constitutional protection for unborn babies or weakened its resolve to overturn Roe v. Wade,”the 1973 Supreme Court decision that made most abortions legal.


Some Republican supporters of abortion rights suggested that Dole’s statement fell so far short of what they want the GOP platform to say that some Republicans may shift their loyalty to the Democratic Party.”Until the call for a constitutional amendment to ban all abortions is taken out of the platform, pro-choice Republicans across the country have all told us they will continue to desert Bob Dole for someone who will stay out of their private lives,”said Stone.

Laura Holmes, executive director of Republicans for Choice, said that if the anti-abortion constitutional amendment was critical to the party, it should have been taken up by the Republican-controlled Congress-which Dole leads until next week, when he officially steps down as Senate majority leader to run for president.”If this constitutional amendment is so important to Bob Dole, why hasn’t he demanded that the Senate bring it up for a vote?”she asked.”If Dole doesn’t demand a vote on the platform’s only constitutional amendment, he’s going to look like nothing more than a hypocrite.” Supporters of abortion rights outside the Republican Party welcomed the call for tolerance but said the continued inclusion of the call for a constitutional amendment would fuel the volatile issue.

Eileen Moran, board chair of Catholics for a Free Choice and a fellow of the Michael Harrington Center at Queens College in Flushing, N.Y., called Dole’s statement”disingenuous”because it fails to promote”true dialogue”on the abortion issue.”For all the rhetoric of facilitating debate, it doesn’t really do that. It’s not going to win him any big votes from men or women who are pro-choice,”she said.

Jill Hanauer, executive director of The Interfaith Alliance, a Washington-based group that takes no public position on abortion but that monitors the religious right, said she did not think Dole’s statement would please either side or moderate the debate.”There’s an orthodoxy in the pro-life movement as there is in the pro-choice movement, and this statement does little for either side. I don’t think it moves the debate forward.”The only thing that will resolve the issue is more dialogue,”she said.”This (Dole’s statement) is political posturing.”JC END ANDERSON

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