IS IT BUTTER YET?

:Abortion stance shows wider shift on social issues (BILL LAMBRECHT AND DEIRDRE SHESGREEN, 07/05/2003, St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

As an adviser to leading Democratic politicians and an activist on women's issues, Joanne Symons helped Rep. Richard Gephardt negotiate the tricky political waters of switching positions on abortion in 1986 as he planned his first presidential campaign.

Symons told him back then that liberal constituencies that flex their muscle in Democratic Party primaries would find it hard to swallow his
anti-abortion stance.

But she warned Gephardt that he likely would face a backlash from jilted anti-abortion forces if he made the switch. She was right.

On top of that, Gephardt had to deal with suspicion from abortion-rights leaders who wondered about his motives, Symons recalled during an
interview shortly before her death in March.

"He kept churning things up inside and listening and asking questions until he came to a place where he could be. I think that when you approach things like that, you can change and evolve. Of course there was a political payoff," Symons said.

Gephardt entered Congress as a passionate opponent of abortion, taking to the House floor shortly after moving into his office in 1977 to declare support for a Right-to-Life amendment to the Constitution.

"Life is the division of human cells, a process which begins at conception," he asserted. By that spring, he had become a sponsor of legislation to ban spending federal funds on most abortions.

But in 1986, he met in St. Louis with Loretto Wagner and leaders of Missouri Citizens for Life to tell them he was defecting from their movement. [...]

He has said that as president, he would sign a measure banning the mid- and late-term abortion procedure that opponents call "partial-birth abortion" only if it included a life and health exception for the woman.

But in past years, Gephardt has voted to ban the procedure. He supported both the Democratic version of the ban, which included an exception for the health of the woman, and the more stringent Republican version, which included an exception only for the woman's life.

During the 2002 debate, a statement by Gephardt in the Congressional Record noted that the Supreme Court had struck down a Nebraska state law banning the procedure.

"Banning this procedure without such an exception (for the health of the mother) is unconstitutional," Gephardt said in the statement.

Gephardt then voted in favor of the bill he had criticized as unconstitutional.

While seeking to refine his position, Gephardt rekindled criticism that he lacked consistency, judging by a Republican National Committee e-mail sent around the country this year under the headline: "Gephardt modifies position on partial birth ban."

That on abortion Gephardt continues to duck and run was demonstrated as recently as last week.

The House of Representatives voted last month on a compromise version of the partial-birth abortion ban, one that would have permitted the
procedure when the woman's life was in danger because of a physical disorder, illness or injury caused by the pregnancy.

Gephardt was campaigning the day the issue came before the House and missed the vote - not an unusual event, especially for politicians running for president.

What is unusual is that Gephardt and his staff decline to say how he would have voted - despite daily queries last week from the Post-Dispatch.

It would seem to the outside observer like Mr. Gephardt still feels the pull of conscience, but finds it easy to break free when his political future is implicated. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 10, 2003 2:11 PM