Proposal Of Tactical Shift In Gop’s Abortion Stance Stirs Hornet’s Nest Amendment Language Could Be Dropped, Christian Coalition Leader Writes In Book

Christian Coalition director Ralph Reed suggests in a new book that the Republican Party could rewrite its platform on abortion to remove a specific call for a constitutional amendment without retreating from the party’s moral stand.

“To some in the pro-life community, any change in the wording is anathema, but pro-lifers could draft language that would be as morally compelling,” Reed writes in “Active Faith,” excerpted in the May 13 issue of Newsweek, which will be on newsstands Monday.

Reed’s suggested language calls for Republicans to use “all legal and constitutional means” to protect the unborn, along with the elderly, the infirm and the disabled.

Reed’s suggestion brought sharp criticism from Angela “Bay” Buchanan, who manages the GOP presidential campaign of her brother, Pat. She said Reed is only “giving aid and comfort” to those who support abortion rights. “Ralph Reed is sending up the white flag of surrender,” she said.

Sen. Bob Dole, the presumptive GOP nominee, has explored the idea of modifying the party’s abortion plank but says he is committed to an anti-abortion stance. He appointed Illinois Rep. Henry Hyde, a staunch abortion opponent, to head the GOP’s platform committee. Hyde has promised there will be no retreat from the party’s opposition to abortion.

The current platform, in place since 1980, specifically calls for a “human life amendment” to the Constitution and for federal legislation to make it clear that the 14th Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.

In his book, Reed makes it clear that he supports these goals, but he says that “as a purely tactical matter,” amending the Constitution “may be the most remote weapon at our disposal at this time.”

“Undeniably, the votes cannot currently be found in Congress for the ultimate goal of the pro-life movement, a constitutional amendment to ban abortion,” he writes in the Newsweek excerpts.

Reed, who notes in the excerpts that he speaks only for himself and not for the Christian Coalition, also urges Republicans to stop personal attacks against President Clinton and to tone down their rhetoric against homosexuals.

In an interview Saturday, Reed insisted he is not retreating from his support for a constitutional amendment banning abortion, but suggested the platform language might focus on broader philosophical points.

“I believe purely as a matter of tactics we should remain focused on principle rather than the existing language in the platform,” he said. “Our ultimate goal is more broad than the existing wording of the political platform.”

The party’s platform, he said, should reflect a commitment to “uplift the needy, protect the innocent, save the unborn.”

“I think our goal ought to be the principle of the sanctity of human life,” he said.

Reed’s book arrives as the abortion debate within the Republican Party is heating up. Republican governors who support abortion rights, including Pete Wilson of California, Christie Whitman of New Jersey and George Pataki of New York, have said they will fight to remove the anti-abortion plank entirely.

Wilson repeated that promise Saturday.

“There are a majority of Republicans throughout the nation who are not necessarily pro-abortion. They are pro-choice,” he told CNN’s “Inside Politics Weekend.” “And they think that it is a mistake for the party’s platform to contain a plank pledging to seek a constitutional amendment.”

Bay Buchanan complained that Reed’s proposal makes no specific mention of amending the Constitution. Plus, she said, he mixes in other issues that are not related to abortion, such as opposition to physician-assisted suicide, euthanasia and health-care rationing.

“He has taken the plight of the unborn, where it had stood on its own and very well should stand on its own, and he has decided to mingle it with other issues,” she said. “He just mushed it all into some very nice statement about citizens.”