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 | CHOOSING SIDES
MAY 2, 1996TRANSCRIPT |
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The debate over abortion is heating up, especially within the Republican Party. Several Republican governors have announced they favor taking the pro-life plank out of the Republican platform. Margaret Warner talks to two congressional Republicans on opposite sides of the fence.Click here for NewHour coverage of the late-term abortion debate,or the history of the Republican Party.
MARGARET WARNER: For 20 years, the Republican Party platform has called for a constitutional amendment ending a woman's guaranteed right to abortion. Abortion rights supporters hope to strip that plank from the platform this year, but the Christian Right and disappointed Presidential Candidate Pat Buchanan are fighting to retain it. This week, California Governor Pete Wilson fueled the controversy when he told reporters in Washington, "We should put the plank to one side and simply get on with our business." Yet, also this week, Sen. Bob Dole, the party's putative nominee, picked long-time abortion foe Henry Hyde to head the platform committee. The Illinois congressman said, "I don't intend to weaken the party's pro-life position." To discuss where the party should go on this issue, we have two Republican members of Congress: Connie Morella of Maryland and Tim Hutchinson of Arkansas. Welcome, both you.REP. CONNIE MORELLA, (R) Maryland: Thank you. Good to be here.
MARGARET WARNER: Congressman, what's your reaction to what Gov. Wilson said this week?
REP. TIM HUTCHINSON, (R) Arkansas: Well, we've been the party of open debate. We've allowed this whole subject to be debated. We've allowed a big tent policy to exist. But I don't think, we certainly ought not set it aside. This is the greatest moral issue facing America today, and for a great political party to ignore that issue I think is unconscionable. It's unthinkable, and this has been a winning position. This has been a winning platform two out of the last three presidential elections. We've won on this platform. We took control of the House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate on this platform. Umm, six out of seven of our freshman women are pro-life, so I think it would be very, a very big mistake to abandon the prof-life position.
MARGARET WARNER: You disagree?
REP. CONNIE MORELLA: I think it is totally incongruous with the tenets of the Republican Party, which are individual freedom, umm, minimal government, limited government, entrepreneurship, and I think it doesn't belong there, and it--if it is going to be in the plank as a plank in the platform, it's going to be divisive, instead of being a big tent, it's going to look like a revival tent, and I think we're going to have real problems for our presidential candidate to have something that is so divisive. We need to come together. We need to be unified. We don't need to be divided, even though we may disagree, and it's perfectly fine to disagree, but it just does not belong in the platform.
REP. TIM HUTCHINSON: Well, no one agrees with everything in the party platform. You know, pro-choice Republicans are being given a prominent role in the convention. I assume Pete Wilson will have a prominent role. I know Governor Whitman will have a prominent role. So there's certainly a great contrast, Connie, to the Democrat Party where a pro-life governor is not even allowed to speak. So I think that's healthy, and we don't all agree on tax policy, we don't all agree on national defense in the party platform, but we can be together and we can be unified but there are tens of millions of Republicans, loyal Republicans, pro-life Republicans, who have fueled the energy, the enthusiasm to give us the majority in the House, and I think it would be so demoralizing and so discouraging for us to abandon that pro-life plank that's served us very well.
MARGARET WARNER: Do you think it would cost Sen. Dole votes if it were removed from these, these people you've just described?
REP. TIM HUTCHINSON: I think it would cost votes. Well, let me say this. I think it would cost the grassroots support, enthusiasm, and excitement that we're going to need this year to turn those polls around. You know, Connie said it's incongruous with, with what our party stands for, but our party was born as the party of respect for human life, and so I think it would be incongruous for us to abandon that principle.
MARGARET WARNER: What about that point that it could cost Sen. Dole the enthusiastic support?
REP. CONNIE MORELLA: Well, you know, the polls have demonstrated that most Republicans are pro-choice; they have also demonstrated that many pro or anti-choice Republicans believe that the plank should be taken out of the, uh, platform for the presidential. Why alienate every pro-choice American who will be voting? And in some of the other elections where we had Republican Presidents succeed, there have been other issues that have been more paramount. What we need to do is we need to work together on the common ground. We need to prevent teen pregnancy. We need to help make families flourish. We need to work on many of those issues, rather than the issues that divide and just flaunt them, and so I think that it could be the battleground for this Presidential election.
MARGARET WARNER: All right. Now, if this plank stays in the platform, I'm going to reverse the question, do you think it will cost Sen. Dole votes among--
REP. CONNIE MORELLA: I think so.
MARGARET WARNER: Among whom?
REP. CONNIE MORELLA: It comes also now at a time when there's a gender gap, and there are so many things that the Republicans have done for women--domestic violence, umm, we've had family and medical leave, we've had other issues that have come-- entrepreneurship--that have assisted women, and this is what they should be pushing, opportunity for women, and not, umm, and not making this gender gap even larger in terms of it being affiliated with one party, so I think it will cost some votes because Americans are middle-of-the-road, and they feel that abortion is personal and should be private, and it has to do with one's personal beliefs, and it doesn't belong on the agenda for politicians.
MARGARET WARNER: Cost him votes of women?
REP. TIM HUTCHINSON: No, I don't think so. I mean, as I said, six of our seven freshman women are pro-life. It didn't--and I don't, I don't think so at all. Umm, I don't think we have to abandon our commitment to the unborn in order to showcase many of the things--the--many of the pro-women things that we're doing, and I would hope that we would do that but I don't think--you know, the polls can--they can say a lot of things, depending upon how the questions are framed, but I can guarantee you this: that where the energy is, where those who are deeply committed on this issue, that's the pro-life side, and they're the ones who are going to be left out of that big tent--
REP. CONNIE MORELLA: We have to show--
REP. TIM HUTCHINSON: --if we abandon this principle.
REP. CONNIE MORELLA: We have to show that we really are a party that is a party of inclusion, instead of exclusion. If we disagree on that issue, fine, but why put it in the platform? Why not bring out the economy, jobs, education, the environment, those things that Americans really care about, and leave that, the bedroom, the personal philosophy that people may have, to individuals personally. I think that's what the Americans want.
REP. TIM HUTCHINSON: Well, our statement, our principle for life in the platform is in no way a litmus test. We have welcomed pro- choice Republicans into the party and have given them prominent, prominent roles in it, in great contrast--you know, if there's an exclusionary party, it's the Democrat Party.
MARGARET WARNER: Let me ask you, if it isn't a litmus test and many candidates such as Congresswoman Morella run being pro- choice, then what does it mean really?
REP. TIM HUTCHINSON: Well, I think it means a great deal. It means a great deal to the millions of Americans who feel very, very strongly. Uh--
MARGARET WARNER: But I mean does it commit the party to anything?
REP. TIM HUTCHINSON: It does. I think it certainly does. It's-- there is going to be a pro-life party in America, uh, and the Republican Party should be that party identified with human life, and for us to abandon that, I think, invites a real bad future for our party. We didn't start winning these elections, we didn't take control of the House till we had the social conservatives join in this coalition, and to turn our back upon the social conservatives I think would be a devastating mistake.
MARGARET WARNER: Let me--
REP. CONNIE MORELLA: Don't forget, we lost the last Presidential election.
REP. TIM HUTCHINSON: And we won control of the House.
REP. CONNIE MORELLA: And there were a number of Republicans who did not vote presidentially for President Bush for that reason.
REP. TIM HUTCHINSON: And it was, it was this very platform under which Ronald Reagan won a huge landslide.
REP. CONNIE MORELLA: But there was also an interest rate at that time that was 18 1/2 percent, and inflation was high.
REP. TIM HUTCHINSON: He won reelection. There's lots of things to explain the Bush defeat, apart from looking to our party platform.
MARGARET WARNER: Let me ask you both something about your assumed nominee, Sen. Dole. What do you think his position is on abortion?
REP. CONNIE MORELLA: I, I think that Sen. Dole should be pushing integrity, experience, and leadership, and he should be talking about a party of inclusion.
MARGARET WARNER: No. I'm sorry, I'm--what do you think his view is? What is your understanding?
REP. CONNIE MORELLA: I think he'd like to have it taken out of the platform.
MARGARET WARNER: What do you think?
REP. TIM HUTCHINSON: Well, his voting record is strictly pro- life. I hope he'll look deep within himself and he'll find there a commitment to human life, and that he'll be willing to speak out forcefully on that issue, umm, and I'll take him at his word, and I'll take him at his voting record that he's a pro-life Republican.
REP. CONNIE MORELLA: But he may be, you know, a pro-life Republican, but that doesn't mean he wants to have that in the platform. He's got to appeal to the American people and they are middle-of-the-road. They would like to do what they can to prevent abortion, but they believe in choice, and they just don't think that politicians should be playing around with that issue.
MARGARET WARNER: Does the platform have any bearing on any-- you're both running for office this year--is it going to have any bearing on your race?
REP. TIM HUTCHINSON: Well, as I said, I think it definitely has a bearing upon those who are committed to the pro-life cause. For us to abandon that would raise real questions. Of course, I think I've been outspoken on the issue, and I don't think it would have an impact there. Umm, but I certainly think it will impact the national political picture, the environment in which we will all run if the Republican Party should turn its back upon the pro- life position.
MARGARET WARNER: If it stays in, does it affect you negatively, do you think?
REP. CONNIE MORELLA: I don't believe so because I have a track record in the state legislature, and, and in the federal legislature, but I do think it's going to have an impact on the Presidential election.
MARGARET WARNER: Mm-hmm. Now, the Congressman--just respond to this, if you would. He said he thought it was very healthy to have this debate very publicly. I think that's what you were saying.
REP. TIM HUTCHINSON: That's right.
MARGARET WARNER: Do you agree, Congresswoman?
REP. CONNIE MORELLA: Oh--
MARGARET WARNER: Do you think it's good to have this?
MARGARET WARNER: And you think the debate's healthy?
REP. TIM HUTCHINSON: The debate is healthy, but I certainly believe that our party will continue to be pro-life, and I'm reassured that Henry Hyde is chairman of that platform committee.
REP. CONNIE MORELLA: But now Henry Hyde is a pragmatic man. He is a man also who has some experience.
REP. TIM HUTCHINSON: He's a man of deep conviction.
REP. CONNIE MORELLA: And maturity. And I think he does not want to tear the party apart, and I think he would like to see this as a party that is an inclusion party. It is the only way the Republican Party is going to expand and attract more people.
REP. TIM HUTCHINSON: Well, we don't have to abandon our principles and our convictions to be an inclusive party. We are inclusive, but we should stay by our principles, and I think we will.
REP. CONNIE MORELLA: And let's--
MARGARET WARNER: All right. We'll--
REP. CONNIE MORELLA: Let's let personal things stay person.
MARGARET WARNER: We'll have to leave it there, but thank--
REP. TIM HUTCHINSON: Thanks, Margaret.
MARGARET WARNER: --you both very much.
REP. CONNIE MORELLA: Thank you very much, Margaret.
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