President Clinton may have bungled and stumbled into a winning issue — the abortion controversy that divides the Republican Party — in nominating Dr. Henry Foster as surgeon general. If the Republican Senate rejects the Tennessee educator-physician, Mr. Clinton could come out a winner politically — if the public perceives this was an “abortion vote,” not a vote against the White House.
The Foster nomination is turning out to be the first real skirmish of the 1996 presidential election. Although the Clinton White House did its usual sloppy job in vetting Dr. Foster’s background, it is awakening to the fact that the Republicans have more to lose than the Democrats in refocusing national attention on abortion. Says Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala: “We’re happy to take them on on the choice issue.”
While the Republican Party is under pressure from right-to-life groups that inserted an anti-abortion plank in its 1992 platform, and is likely to do so again, the American public refuses to go along. A CBS poll last month indicated 75 percent of the Americans favor some form of a woman’s right to choose. Thirty-eight percent said abortion should be generally available; 37 percent agreed within tighter limits. Only 23 percent sided with the official GOP stand in favor of strict prohibition.
At the 1992 Republican convention in Houston, delegates favoring limited abortion rights were denied even an open floor debate. Yet today they are not silent. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., a long-shot contender for the GOP nomination, says he is prepared to “go to the mat” on the principle that a doctor who has performed abortions, as Dr. Foster has, should not be disqualified for the surgeon generalship. Rep. Nancy Johnson, R-Conn., the wife of an ob-gyn, objects to the “narrowly based, mean-spirited” campaign against Dr. Foster.
Such Republican voices are very much the exception. But there are GOP legislators who dislike having their party defined by the anti-abortionists and fear the revival of an issue that helped sink George Bush in 1992. Economic conservatives would prefer to keep congressional energy focused on passage of the House Republican Contract with America, which, revealingly, is silent on abortion. Instead, it vows to discourage teen-age pregnancy by curtailing welfare to young mothers.
Dr. Foster, president of Nashville’s Meharry Medical College, has devoted his career to fighting the scourge of teen-age pregnancy. That he and the White House underestimated the number of abortions he performed (39) is mainly a reflection of this administration’s continuing poor staff work.
This newspaper has deplored White House mismanagement and questioned the political wisdom of choosing an obstetrician for the surgeon-general post. But now that the choice has been made and the lines have been drawn, President Clinton must see this nomination through to the end.
