PHILADELPHIA, PA Reuters, Associated Press, Cincinnati Enquirer; July 27, 2000

    Standing firm against abortion, Republicans offered a draft platform on Thursday that kept previous language supporting the right to life.

    The draft kept staunchly pro-life language taken directly from the 1996 version of this document, a formal statement of Republican core beliefs.

    ``The unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed,'' the draft platform said, adding a clause opposing using taxpayer funds to pay for abortion or organizations that advocate it.

    As for partial-birth abortion, the Republicans wrote that a recent Supreme Court decision prohibiting states from banning it ``shocks the conscience of the nation.''

    Platform committee members received the draft late Thursday and begin working on it Friday, making changes that are expected to be mostly cosmetic. The full Republican National Convention, opening Monday, will ratify the document next week.

    The group of platform committee members chosen to take up the issue in pre-convention meetings Friday is led and dominated by pro-life Republicans, a hurdle in attempts by pro-abortion members to weaken the pro-life platform.

    The ``family and community'' subcommittee is led by two pro-life Republicans: Chris Georgacas, former state party chairman in Minnesota; and Ellen Sauerbrey, a two-time candidate for Maryland governor. Pro-life Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL) serves as one of the members.

    The panel is ``overloaded with those who disagree with us,'' Susan Cullman, head of the Republican Pro-Choice Coalition, said Wednesday. ``It will be very hard to get a majority.'' Cullman said the panel, with about 15 members, knows of only three pro-abortion members. One of them is Candace Straight of New Jersey, head of a political action committee that raises money for pro-abortion candidates for Congress.

    Texas Gov. George W. Bush has said all along that he wants to keep the pro-life platform intact despite the demands of a vocal minority of pro-abortion Republicans.

    Bush's pro-life position was supported in a Philadelphia Inquirer survey of the 2,066 convention delegates. Of the 737 who responded, an overwhelming majority (approximately 70%) expressed strong opposition to abortion: 141 supported a total ban on abortion, and 369 supported a ban with exceptions for rape, incest, and when the woman's life is endangered.

    Pro-abortion activists have said they will try to bring the issue to the convention floor if the platform is left unchanged. The rules, however, make such a challenge difficult.

    Short of removing the pro-life platform, abortion advocates want a statement showing that some Republicans disagree with the pro-life language.

    Barbara Willke of Cincinnati, one of the early national pro-life leaders, said she would have no objection to such language in the platform. "We recognize that Republicans come in all stripes," said Mrs. Willke, who is not a delegate to this year's convention.

    However, the party cannot consider abandoning its call for a constitutional amendment banning abortion, Mrs. Willke said. "The Republican Party was not neutral on slavery: That's why the Republican Party was born," Mrs. Willke said. "The right of the unborn to life is the freedom issue of this century. You can't walk away from that."

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