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Campaign 1996: The Politics of Abortion

Think Tank Transcript:Politics of Abortion

ANNOUNCER: 'Think Tank' is made possible by Amgen, recipient ofthe Presidential National Medal of Technology. Amgen, helping cancerpatients through cellular and molecular biology, improving livestoday and bringing hope for tomorrow.

Additional funding is provided by the John M. Olin Foundation andthe Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.

MR. WATTENBERG: Hello, I'm Ben Wattenberg. So far, our politicianshave been unwilling or unable to hammer out a compromise on the issueof abortion. But according to recent polls, there may be a consensusopinion among the public. Are the Republicans and the Democrats outof touch with voters when it comes to abortion?

Joining us to sort through the conflict and consensus are: MichaelNovak, director of social and political studies at the AmericanEnterprise Institute and editor of 'To Empower People: From State toCivil Society'; Naomi Wolf, author of 'Fire with Fire: The New FemalePower and How It Will Change the 21st Century'; George McKenna,political science professor at the City University of New York andco-editor of 'Taking Sides on Controversial Political Issues'; andClyde Wilcox, political science professor at Georgetown Universityand co-author of 'Between Two Absolutes: Public Opinion and thePolitics of Abortion.'

The topic before this house: Campaign '96 -- the politics ofabortion. This week on 'Think Tank.'

Opinion polls indicate that both the Republican Party and theDemocratic Party have staked out positions on abortion that are morehard line than those of their rank and file members. In 1992, theRepublican Party platform included a strong anti-abortion plank, ahuman life amendment to the Constitution. For their part, theDemocratic Party is officially pro-choice. The party refused to hearpro-life speakers at its 1992 convention. Its platform reiteratedfull support for Roe vs. Wade and called for renewed federal spendingon abortions for poor women. And this spring, President Clintonvetoed a bill that would have banned so-called partial birth abortionprocedures.

But how do American voters feel about abortion? Well, they don'tlike it. Since becoming legal in 1973, the number of abortions hasclimbed to 1 1/2 million per year. One in four pregnancies ends inabortion, the highest rate in the developed world. Fifty-one percentof Americans think that abortion is morally wrong, yet most favorkeeping abortion legal with some restrictions, such as parentalnotification and 24-hour waiting periods.

The National Opinion Research Center found that in recent years,31 percent of voters identify themselves as pro-choice, 7 percent aspro-life and 62 percent, nearly two-thirds, as intermediate, whichroughly translates to pro-choice with restrictions. So there is adisconnect. Neither party reflects the views of the majority ofAmericans. Both presidential candidates seem to be held hostage byfactions, Bob Dole by pro-life religious conservatives, PresidentClinton by pro-choice activist feminists.

Thank you, lady and gentlemen, for joining us. You all have someunique perspectives on this. Let us begin with you, Naomi Wolf, andgo around the room. Are American politicians out of synch on abortionwith the American public?

MS. WOLF: Well, I do have to take issue with your analysis. Iabsolutely disagree that the 61 percent who are in the middle supportabortion with restrictions. I think that what their ambivalence meansis that they support abortion with regret, and that's what I think wehave to recognize, we who are pro-choice, that most Americans want tosupport abortion as a legal right and still be able to condemn it asa moral iniquity.

I also have to take issue with your description of PresidentClinton as if he's being held hostage by a cabal of activistfeminists. I think that groups like Planned Parenthood reflect thedesire of most Americans to have a safe, legal abortion be an option,even while I challenge groups like that to open up this discussion toadmit regret.

MR. WATTENBERG: I do not recall using the word cabal, but let usgo on. Clyde Wilcox.

MR. WILCOX: I do think that both parties have taken positionswhich really don't reflect the average American position. And I wouldagree with Ben, actually, that most Americans do favor some legalrestrictions on abortion, over half in most of the surveys I've seen.

What's really striking is how different abortion is than otherkinds of issues. On issues like welfare reform and defense spending,the candidates really move to the center and adopt very similarpositions, but only really on abortion do you see the candidatestaking really diametrically opposed positions like this.

MR. WATTENBERG: Michael, are the politicians in tune with thepublic?

MR. NOVAK: No and yes. On this --

MR. WATTENBERG: Well, those are two good answers. Okay.

MR. NOVAK: Yeah. Well, look, if we could trust the courts, I thinkyou'd get very strong majorities to be for restrictions. Well, that'swhere the majorities are, but that's where the politicians would be,too. Just to restrict abortion in certain respects. We are the onlycivilized nation that allows abortion right up to the last minute, infact, when the child now is five-sixths born. This partial birthabortion is really partial infanticide. It's five-sixths infanticide.

So I think most people and most civilized people do have somerestrictions on abortion. However, how do you make those stick whenthe court is liable to overturn them? And that's why it's veryimportant to have a distinction between a long-range view -- we knowwe won't get an amendment, but you have to keep in mind the defenseof life and the defense of the personhood of the fetus, of theunborn. And if you do that in the long run, then in the short run youcan begin going where the consensus is and make laws to restrict ithere or there, little by little.

MR. WATTENBERG: George McKenna.

MR. MCKENNA: I think there is a disconnect, I think you're right,although I think it takes different forms for the two parties. Ithink with regard to the Democrats, they are out of line with publicopinion because -- and I think Clyde's statistics are right, thatmost Americans favor some legal restrictions on abortion. They don'tjust regret it.

In fact, as I read it, if you look at the data, it looks as thoughmost Americans oppose most abortions. They are pro-choice on theso-called hard cases of incest, rape, fetal deformity, but they arenot pro-choice when it comes to economic or social reasons, as Iunderstand it.

And of course, the vast majority of Americans, I think it'ssomething like 75 percent, do not support funding of abortion, whichis a democratic position.

MR. WATTENBERG: Right, but they are not pro illegalization. Imean, that's really the dividing line when you get through all ofthis stuff. Are you in favor of abortion being legal even though youpersonally oppose it?

MR. MCKENNA: They're not in favor of a human life amendment, themajority are not, in the way that the Republican platform has put ittogether since 1980, that's true. And that's where I think there'sgoing to be some battles in the Republican Party.

I think the Republicans' kind of disconnect is a little different.I find a lot of Republican politicians who say, yeah, I'm pro-life,and they never sit down and talk about why they're pro-life. Theynever engage in discussion.

I think that -- and I think this is the beauty of Naomi's articleis that it's starting to open up so that we can talk about it insteadof staking out rigid positions.

MR. WATTENBERG: Naomi, George referred to your article. Why don'tyou tell us its name and its general viewpoint?

MS. WOLF: I wrote a piece called 'Our Bodies, Our Souls' for the'The New Republic' last October, which challenged, lovingly I hope,some members of the pro-choice movement for resorting to euphemismwhen it came to what it actually meant to terminate a pregnancy, forexample, calling a four-month-old fetus uterine tissue. And I calledupon us to advance the fight while being willing to recognize thatthere is -- there should be space in our discourse for anacknowledgement of the regret and sadness that should be involved insaying no to the gift of a pregnancy.

MR. WATTENBERG: Well, but what we're trying to deal with here isthe politics of this situation. Just out of curiosity, how were you-- how was this article greeted by your pro-choice colleagues?

MS. WOLF: Well, if we're going to talk about disconnects, I thinkwe've got to notice that what I found is that hundreds of strongpro-choice women and men were very warm in their support of what Iwas doing and that I had some very enlightening letters frompro-lifers, who are willing, I think -- I think we're at a moment anda Zeitgeist where reasonable people on both sides are willing to findcommon ground. But Planned Parenthood and other organizationalrepresentatives did have, unfortunately, an initial quite hostilereaction in some quarters.

MR. NOVAK: Yeah, I think pro-life people would be, many of them,anyway, would be delighted to get in this discussion because theywant to explore their own view on this, and they do believe that asthe discussion goes forward, we could begin making progress on thepractical side. Now, their long-range agenda is to restrict abortion,but they realize --

MS. WOLF: And ours is to keep it.

MR. NOVAK: Yeah, but they realize that you can only do that in ademocratic society by persuading people. And what has been terriblyfrustrating on the pro-life side is the silence on the reasons, asGeorge said just a moment ago, on all sides. You hear politiciansand, for that matter, other people say, 'I'm pro-life,' or 'I'mpro-choice,' but never give the reasons, especially never confrontthe strongest reasons on the other side.

MR. WATTENBERG: The classic line is from the liberal politician,who will say, 'I'm anti-abortion, but I believe in a woman's right tochoose.' You know, that gets sort of a little bit here, a little bitthere, and they think everybody goes home happy, but they don't. Imean, I don't.

MR. NOVAK: Yeah, a friend of mine says about the bumper sticker --and bumper stickers are a bad place to conduct these arguments --'Pro-choice, pro-child,' you see a bumper sticker. He said that'slike being pro-pig, pro-pork chop.

MS. WOLF: Oh, that does not do justice to the --

MR. WATTENBERG: Now wait a minute. Now, Michael, hold on a minute.

MR. NOVAK: Well, I'm telling you, but bumper stickers are a badway to do this, like I said.

MR. WATTENBERG: Let me get back to this thought that we beganwith, that -- and I think there was sort of some agreement -- thatneither party is reflecting most of the people in America, theirplatform positions. Why not?

MR. WILCOX: I think it all stems to Roe. I mean, once Roe becamelaw --

MR. WATTENBERG: Roe v. Wade.

MR. WILCOX: Yes -- then it didn't matter what position apolitician took because they couldn't affect your abortion rightanyway. And so many pro-choice women, for example, felt comfortablevoting for Ronald Reagan because who cared what he thought aboutabortion? He couldn't take away your abortion right.

Republicans then were free to move to the right to capture theactivism of the pro-life movement, the Democrats then free to move tothe left to capture the activism of the pro-choice movement withoutworrying about losing the voters in the middle because the voters inthe middle knew that it didn't really affect their votes.

You started seeing a lot more moderation among the candidatesbeginning with 1989 with the Webster decision, when it became evidentthat some restrictions could be imposed on abortion. That year inVirginia, we had the Governor Wilder race, which Wilder won taking apro-choice position, in part because voters looked at Coleman, whohad staked a very strong pro-life position, and said, He might beable to do that someday, and we don't want that.

So once it begins to be possible to legislate, then voters beginto vote on the issue and then candidates begin to move a little bitmore towards the center, I think.

MR. WATTENBERG: And in favor of some moderate restrictions. Imean, both President Clinton and Vice President Gore before the 1992convention favored certain aspects of Webster and Casey and thesedecisions that dealt with 24-hour waiting periods and federal fundingand a lot of ancillary things, while not challenging the legality ofit.

MR. WILCOX: If I had to pick the ideal strategic position for theRepublicans and the Democrats, I think Clinton is pretty ideal forthe Democrats, which is abortion should be safe, legal and rare, youknow, trying to discourage abortion, trying to say that we reallyshould not do this very often, but keeping it safe and legal is agood position for Democrats.

MR. WATTENBERG: But that's not what the platform says. They don'tget in -- they're afraid to get into 'rare,' because you challengedthe idea, you called it some -- that I said it was some pro-choicecabal. They will not allow that into the platform, to say 24-hourwaiting period, adoption counseling, parental consent, which mostAmericans -- and I beg to differ with what you said before; there isclear evidence on this -- 65, 70, 75, 80 percent of the people agreewith those specific restrictions. And I'm pro-choice, by the way.

MS. WOLF: I hear you, and I accept what you're saying. I do haveto say that, looking at what the president has actually done, I thinkhe's absolutely living up to the desire among most Americans to haveabortion be safe, legal and rare. The adoption bill I think is agreat step. I mean, one of the most beautiful things I've ever heardis the St. Louis abortion clinic that down the hall had an adoptionclinic and gave women a real choice. They couldn't get funding frompro-lifers because they performed abortions. They couldn't getfunding from pro-choicers because they recommended adoptions.

MR. NOVAK: You know, in the first week, though, you'd find it veryhard to persuade pro-lifers that Clinton is on their side. I thinkI've never seen a president whom there's so much discussed on thismatter. And not only the partial infanticide veto.

MS. WOLF: Partial infanticide -- excuse me, I --

MR. NOVAK: I want to call it what it is. That's five-sixths whatit is. The child is five-sixths out of the womb. But the very firstweek of his presidency, he opens up military hospitals to abortionand he rescinds a presidential order of Bush on this issue, rightwhen the pro-life march was here in Washington. You couldn't imaginea greater insult. And it's proceeded like that throughout hisadministration.

MR. WILCOX: Well, but that's not the ideal position for aRepublican. The position that you people articulated I think is thebest position for a Republican, which is to say, moral critic ofabortion, trying to limit abortion wherever it is constitutionallypermissible, and then trying to win the war of public opinion. That'sa great position for a Republican candidate. MS. WOLF: Moreimportantly --

MR. MCKENNA: Well, I think -- go ahead.

MS. WOLF: -- I'm sorry. We're talking about politics, but in away, let's rise above partisanship for a moment. The position thatyou articulated and the position that I think I'm articulating andwhat the president's trying to do is actually best for the problem. Imean, we keep losing sight of women and children, who are beingcaught in the crossfire of these two movements and aren't talking toeach other.

MR. WATTENBERG: I mean, I sense that, despite the sparks here,there is some agreement. What you and you, who are both pro-life, aresaying is we ought to move on this slowly, with these moderaterestrictions to begin with. Is that correct?

MR. MCKENNA: That's exactly my view. I was just going to say thatmy advice to fellow pro-lifers, and I am a pro-lifer, is to take whatyou can get right now, you know. When Henry Hyde got the Hydeamendment through this time, he had to make sacrifices. He madeexceptions for cases of rape and incest. That doesn't mean for onemoment that Henry Hyde thinks that those unborn children are any lessworthy than other unborn children. It was simply that he knew thevotes weren't there.

And I think that's where the center of it is. The votes aren'tthere for a human life amendment in its absolute form. It's time forhalf a loaf, and I think that when comes to pro-choicers like Naomi,I would say to her, take us as far as you can. If we push too far,don't vote with us, oppose us. But maybe there are some areas, andcertainly about line one with regard to promotion of adoption, wherewe can agree. And if we seem to be pushing you too far, then say,Well, I oppose George on this.

But I do think that it's mistaken to characterize Bill Clinton asa moderate on abortion. He's opposed even the most incrementalrestrictions on abortion, that part that that huge majority supports.And so I don't think he's --

MR. WATTENBERG: But isn't this -- I mean, what I said in the setuppiece, I mean both parties are forced into positions by their wingsthat they will not accept incremental reforms. The pro-lifers, youknow, are saying you can't touch a single syllable in that human lifeamendment, and the pro-choicers are saying, you know, the Democraticplatform is not going to have in there anything saying that you canhave a 24-hour waiting period, parental consent, whatever. I mean,there is sort of -- it's both parties.

MR. NOVAK: But one way to do that is to put the emphasis, on theRepublican side and I would urge on the Democratic side as well, putthe emphasis on those intermediate measures that Clyde's been talkingabout. There would be a very large consensus for parental choice, fora 24-hour waiting period. Probably there would be a strong consensusfor no abortions in the last trimester.

And then the pro-life people understand they don't have the votesfor the amendment. They want to keep it there as an idea to work to,but that's not where they want to fight for the next four years.

MS. WOLF: I still think that we are looking in the wrong place.We're still -- as I hear you talking about how to fix this throughlegislation. And what I'm saying, I'm issuing an appeal to you and toyour colleagues to say let's stop doing this reflex of makinglegislation do the work of moral introspection, and let's join forceswhere we can to say, what are we going to do to make contraceptionmore widely available, to give women and children prenatal care, tomake sure that children are not living in situations where there'slead in their paint and inadequate food, so that a mother quiteresponsibly thinks, I cannot inflict these conditions on a child. Andlet's stop fetishizing the human life amendment and stop relegatingwomen to second-class status, because one person who's been absent inthis discussion very much is the woman and the conflicts that shevery deeply faces.

MR. NOVAK: There is this one difficulty, and maybe we can getaround it in this way. The difficulty is the show is about thepolitics of it. And I think Naomi is quite right in saying the mainissue is a cultural and moral problem, and we have to think anddiscuss this through and we have to dialogue this through over ageneration. And so far, that hasn't been done from a pro-life side.It's hardly ever done in the press on the pro-life side. The vastmajority of articles are pro-choice. But no matter. We could do it inprivate, in any circumstances we could come to.

I think that needs to go on for the next 10 or 20 years, and thelegal issues will ripen, the political issues will ripen in thebackground.

MR. WATTENBERG: Michael, you could see -- let's just talk now --we talked about the public opinion and we were sort of talking aboutwhy the feelings are so deep. What do you do about it? You would beprepared, from what you just said, to at least alter that human lifeamendment, to say, well, we're going to -- it's over a period oftime.

MR. NOVAK: No, if you put us back into the political framework,then I think we have to work with the pro-life amendment, evenrecognizing that it's long term, that we're not going to get there inthe next 4, 8 or 12 years because most of the American people are notpersuaded. But you have to that as a goal because until now, thecourts, and the law schools, for that matter, are obstructing thewill of the American people. You can't make these moderate steps. Youhave to have something in statutory law defending the rights of thehuman person.

MR. WATTENBERG: George, could you accept some dilution for --

MR. MCKENNA: Well, I think that -- I read the Republican platform,and I don't see any reason, and I just speak for myself, I'm not --first of all, I'm a registered Democrat, and I'm not going to give upmy passport because of a lot of other issues.

MR. WATTENBERG: So am I.

MR. MCKENNA: And so I'm probably not the best person to advise theRepublican Party, but I do think, having seen the platform, that thelanguage seems in some ways curiously legalistic. There is adiscussion of the due process clause of the 14th amendment. Whounderstands that except lawyers? There is no reason why the languagecan't be changed. I know there is a risk in that. I could see 'TheNew York Times' headline the next day: 'Republicans Retreat onAbortion.' But I think that, yes, but I agree with Michael that theobject should be a goal, and the goal can be reached in a lot ofdirections.

And Naomi is absolutely right, that there needs to be more frankdialogue, such as the kind we're having today, between both sides.

MR. WATTENBERG: Well, now, but Naomi, you're asking them to comealong half way a little bit. Are you prepared to recommend to theDemocrats that they put in their platform that states have theability to scrutinize and decide on their own, for example, whetherto have the parental notification, 24-hour waiting period, adoptionconsultation, that sort of stuff, that does not illegalize abortion?I mean, if you're asking them to make some steps, are you allprepared to make some steps?

MS. WOLF: First let me just cheer even the thought that the rightwould stop fetishizing the human life amendment. I think that if youwant to open dialogue --

MR. NOVAK: Don't call it fetishizing. You're going to stop theargument from going forward.

MS. WOLF: I'm sorry.

MR. MCKENNA: Or the right.

MR. WATTENBERG: Or the right.

MS. WOLF: All right, I'll try to rephrase that.

MR. WATTENBERG: I mean, you have a Democrat, a pro-life --Governor Casey of Pennsylvania is no right-winger. I mean, so --okay.

MS. WOLF: You're right, you're right. I was -- I misspoke.

MR. WATTENBERG: Okay.

MS. WOLF: Let me applaud the willingness of pro-lifers to considerdirecting the same energies toward working together to lower theabortion rate through persuasion, through alternatives, that in thepast has gone into legislation. Let me say the same thing about myown side. I keep saying I don't think the answer to this problem isthrough legislation.

MR. WATTENBERG: You think the Democrats and the Republicans shouldboth drop the plank completely?

MS. WOLF: I think the Republicans should drop the plank.

MR. WATTENBERG: Well, what about the Democrats? Why shouldn't theydrop the plank --

MS. WOLF: I think the Democrats should do --

MR. WATTENBERG: -- if you want it out of politics?

MS. WOLF: That's a good point, and I won't speak to that except tosay that I think the place to work on this is in our own hearts andour own communities rather than in law.

MR. WATTENBERG: Okay. Let us close this discussion, just insteadof going around the room, just with you, Clyde Wilcox. You are aprofessional survey researcher and a political observer. Tell us fora moment or so how this is going to play out this year, in yourjudgment.

MR. WILCOX: In this particular year, I think the Republicans arefar further away from the average voter than the Democrats and thatabortion will be a winning issue for the Democrats. I do think,though, that in summarizing, that there is a difference between theposition that these two have taken and Naomi. Both George and Michaelwant to be able to persuade Americans through dialogue to changetheir minds on abortion. This is one of the most stable attitudes insurvey research I have ever seen. It's more stable than partisanship.I don't think you're going to switch a lot of minds.

What Naomi is talking about is not dialogue, but work, you know,getting together and trying to find a way to stop abortions fromhappening by counseling and birth control and so forth, and that'sdifferent. And I think it will pose a problem for pro-lifers becausethat movement has been agnostic about birth control for a very longtime because of the Catholic contingent there. They certainly don'twant birth control information passed out in high schools, and soforth, but I think that's more of what she's talking about, finding away to practically stop it. And I think what George and Michael weretalking about is trying to find a way to persuade the public tochange their view. I don't think that's really going to happen.

MR. WATTENBERG: All right. We will have another program on sexeducation, but we are out of time on this one and that will have tobe the final word. Thank you, Clyde Wilcox, George McKenna, NaomiWolf, and Michael Novak.

And thank you. Please send your comments and questions to: NewRiver Media, 1150 17th Street, NW, Washington, DC, 20036. Or we canbe reached via e-mail at thinktv@aol.com or on the World Wide Web atwww.thinktank.com.

For 'Think Tank,' I'm Ben Wattenberg.

ANNOUNCER: This has been a production of BJW, Incorporated, inassociation with New River Media, which are solely responsible forits content.

'Think Tank' is made possible by Amgen, recipient of thePresidential National Medal of Technology. Amgen, helping cancerpatients through cellular and molecular biology, improving livestoday and bringing hope for tomorrow.

Additional funding is provided by the John M. Olin Foundation andthe Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.

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