Third in a weeklong series reviewing the major issues of the presidential campaign.
WASHINGTON - In a campaign in which both contenders have focused intently on wooing independent women voters, the debate over abortion and how the next president may shape the Supreme Court to protect or deny reproductive rights has been surprisingly subdued.
Al Gore and George W. Bush have starkly different positions on abortion. The vice president affirms a woman's right to abortion, supports the use of RU-486, the abortion-inducing drug, and opposes state or federal bans on so-called partial-birth abortions.
The Texas governor opposes abortion and favors a constitutional amendment to ban it except in the cases of rape, incest, or when the life of the pregnant woman is at risk. Bush supports a ban on partial-birth abortions and restrictions on the use of RU-486.
The country is as polarized as the presidential candidates on the emotional issue, polls show. And that is the main reason why neither Gore nor Bush sees any advantage in raising abortion when they can plow safer, less sensitive ground, such as offering working families tax cuts or prescription-drug benefits.
''Both candidates see risk to themselves in their positions on the life issue, and they both have tried to rally their base without being too overt in a way that might turn off other voters they are trying to reach,'' said Gary Bauer, the conservative Republican who also sought the GOP nomination.
''It's been fascinating to see Gore play down abortion in places like Missouri and Michigan, where it would kill him, and Bush disappointing people like me on some of his answers because he is worried about suburban women outside Philadelphia,'' Bauer said.
Bush calls himself a compassionate conservative and says he wants to create ''a culture of life.'' He never highlights the Republican Party platform, which calls for a constitutional amendment banning all abortions, an end to US family-planning services, and the appointment of Supreme Court justices and federal judges who oppose abortion.
In fact, during the second presidential debate, Bush rejected the platform language when he said he would apply ''no litmus test'' to judges.
''I'll put competent judges on the bench, people who will strictly interpret the Constitution and will not use the bench to write social policy,'' Bush said, citing that as ''a big difference'' between himself and Gore. ''I don't believe in liberal, activist judges.''
Gore said he would have no litmus tests, either, but he intended to appoint justices who would read the Constitution as an evolving, contemporary document and be inclined to uphold Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion.
''When the names of [Antonin] Scalia and [Clarence] Thomas are used as benchmarks for who would be appointed, those are code words, and nobody should mistake this for saying that the governor would appoint people who would overturn Roe v. Wade,'' Gore said during the debate.
Liberal groups such as People for the American Way are campaigning harder than Gore to put the Supreme Court - and Bush's praise for conservative Justices Scalia and Thomas - in the spotlight. In its TV ads running in states where Green Party candidate Ralph Nader appears to be cutting into Gore's vote, Bush is pictured with Scalia and Thomas, and the narrator warns the next president could appoint as many as three justices and tip the court's balance on gun control, abortion, and environmental protection.
''With our freedoms at stake, shouldn't you cast a vote that really counts?'' the ad asks.
''This election is not about the next four years, it is about the next 40 years,'' said Ralph Neas, president of People for the American Way.
Conservative activists agree that the president not only could have an unusually high number of appointments - three of the nine justices are 70 or older - but also the opportunity to end the court's frequent 5-4 splits, such as the one that struck down Nebraska's ban on partial-birth abortions in June.
''Even with two appointments, you'd have to do a very bad job as president not to move the court in the direction you want it to go,'' said Bauer.
Abortion-rights activists trust Gore to protect reproductive freedoms, even though his position on the issue changed from the time that he was a member of Congress who opposed federal funding for abortions and wrote, in 1987, that abortion is ''arguably the taking of a human life.''
Abortion foes say they trust Bush to do his best to curtail abortion rights, even though he said in a recent television interview that ''in America, [abortion] is not going to be outlawed until a lot of people change their minds. And there's going to be abortions, one way or the other.''
