A Pro-Life White House
BARNES, FRED
A Pro-Life White House But very quietly so. BY FRED BARNES IN A PRIVATE CHAT, President-elect George W. Bush raised the issue of abortion with Colin Powell several weeks before naming him...
...And he's inclined to wait until it's clear exactly how the language of the bill should be adjusted and whether it will pass...
...And he will remove Julia Taft, of the Republican Taft family of Ohio, as assistant secretary of state for population, refugees, and migration...
...There's also the order that required military hospitals to perform elective abortions...
...And maybe not then...
...So he'll have to be judged by his actions...
...j He rarely broached the subject during i the campaign, and he probably won't : say much about it as president either...
...But he won't be noisy about it...
...Now, that policy has been enacted into law by Congress...
...Another banned the use of fetal tissue in medical research...
...It can't be restored by the stroke of a pen," says Johnson...
...The Powell anecdote gives a pretty good idea...
...He can do this by sending a memorandum to Powell or merely by saying the old policy is restored...
...And though Powell is pro-choice, he would have to follow Bush's lead and eliminate any vestiges of the Clinton State Department's program to promote abortion around the world...
...That reduces to 62 the number of senators who've voted against partial-birth abortion or are committed to doing so...
...So how pro-life will Bush be as president...
...Congress stepped in to reverse that order and ban abortions at military installations...
...Powell said he understood...
...We don't feel any compulsion to decide on the language in the next few weeks," he said...
...j His cabinet will have pro-lifers in the positions of most concern to, well, pro-lifers: John Ashcroft as attorney general, Tommy Thompson as secretary of health and human services...
...In the past, they had a free vote, since President Clinton was certain to veto any ban...
...The pro-life movement views her as pro-abortion...
...Bush said during the campaign that as president, he would lack the authority to override the FDA's action...
...Though ready to sign a bill banning partial-birth abortion, Bush won't be able to do that soon...
...Bush will push the pro-life agenda in areas where it's politically feasible...
...She's a Clinton appointee...
...Bush thought Powell's choice for the post was fine and would satisfy pro-life Republicans...
...Two things have to be taken into account...
...A third sought to speed up approval of RU-486, the abortion pill...
...He did so while insisting—with breathtaking hypocrisy—that he wanted abortion rare...
...One that counts is the staffing of his administration with pro-lifers...
...In the Senate, the pro-life forces lost three votes...
...It's become complicated by regulatory changes...
...BY FRED BARNES IN A PRIVATE CHAT, President-elect George W. Bush raised the issue of abortion with Colin Powell several weeks before naming him secretary of state...
...governor...
...But if he does, he'll likely do it as inconspicuously as possible...
...Doug Johnson, the legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, calls the shots on the bill...
...Remember the five executive orders Clinton signed, shortly after his inauguration in 1993, to make abortions more accessible...
...Later, after his nomination was announced, Powell told Bush who he has in mind to be undersecretary for global affairs...
...Bush hasn't declared whether he'll try to reinstate the rule...
...Don't expect Bush speeches to be ; spiked with anti-abortion comments...
...He intends, for instance, to reinstate the so-called Mexico City policy of Presidents Reagan and Bush senior that barred the use of American funds for groups promoting or performing abortions around the world...
...This raises the question of whether these senators are ready to vote again to bar partial-birth abortion, knowing this time the president will sign the bill...
...He may wind up with more pro-lifers on his White House staff than either his father or President Reagan had...
...Finally, there was what the media called the gag rule, which prohibited abortion counseling at federally funded family planning clinics, which Clinton overturned...
...Whether language can be devised to circumvent the ruling and ban these abortions is uncertain, Johnson says...
...But 15 of these senators have also voted to codify in federal law the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion...
...This is the office, held initially in the Clinton era by former Colorado senator Tim Wirth, that masterminded the use of foreign aid and international organizations to proselytize for abortion as a method of population control...
...One is the Supreme Court ruling last summer that approved partial-birth abortion, so long as the abortionist says it's the safest method for the mother...
...This was a mere gesture, but the abortion pill has now been approved by the Food and Drug Administration anyway...
...Every abortionist is willing to say this, of course, or he'd be in another line of work...
...She's from the wrong side of the Taft family," a Bush aide said, referring to the liberal Tafts, not the side of the current Ohio Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...It turns out only one of these orders, the one rescinding the Mexico City policy, is ripe for elimination...
...Bush said his administration would be pro-life...
...Tom DeLay, the House Republican whip, says it won't come up for a vote until April or May...
Vol. 6 • January 2001 • No. 16
