Christian Right Forces Dole Retreat On Abortion Dole Officials Apparently Wanted To Avoid A Public Fight

Christian right and pro-family leaders Monday joined with Patrick J. Buchanan to force Bob Dole, the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, to all but abandon his attempt to make the party platform more acceptable to supporters of abortion rights.

In private negotiations on the opening day of hearings on the platform, Dole campaign officials and conservative leaders agreed to add language to the document that calls for tolerance of opposing views without specifically mentioning abortion. Elsewhere, the document reiterates the party’s longstanding support for a constitutional amendment banning abortion.

The agreement, which must be approved by the platform committee, calls for a declaration that “while our party remains steadfast in its commitment to advancing its historic principles and ideals, we also recognize that members of our party have deeply held and sometimes differing views.”

This represents a major retreat from language Dole proposed June 12. At that time, he proposed that the platform say that “we also recognize that members of our party have deeply held and sometimes differing views of issues of personal conscience like abortion and capital punishment. We view this diversity of views as a strength, not as a sign of weakness.”

Dole officials apparently were willing to abandon both the reference to abortion and to “personal conscience” in order to avoid a potentially damaging public fight in the platform committee and at the convention, which convenes here a week from Monday to nominate the former Kansas senator.

Abortion rights advocates, who make up a small minority of the delegates to the convention, warned that Dole’s concession to anti-abortion forces further endangers his election chances in November.

“They have just disinvited us again,” said Ann Stone, head of Republicans for Choice. “The payback will be in November.”

Conservative leaders were, however, pleased. “We’ve probably got more religious conservatives on the floor of this convention than any convention of either party in modern American political history,” said Ralph Reed, director of the Christian Coalition.

“When you show up with those kinds of numbers, it’s not hard to come to resolution on these kinds of issues.”

Gary Bauer, head of the Family Research Council, said that in the eight weeks since Dole announced his proposal for more tolerant language in the platform, “his poll numbers have dropped. As those weeks have passed, his people have come to realize that the heart and soul of the party, the people that stuff the envelopes and ring the doorbells” is made up of voters who are overwhelmingly antiabortion.