ASHINGTON - The presidential candidates rarely raise the subject of abortion. But yesterday's tempest over the government's approval of the abortion pill RU-486 proved once again the futility of trying to keep this emotional issue out of the campaign.
Vice President Al Gore, who supports abortion rights, said he was ''pleased'' by the federal Food and Drug Administration's decision to approve RU-486 for use in the United States. Texas Governor George W. Bush, who opposes abortion, said the approval was ''wrong.''
''I fear making this abortion pill widespread will make abortions more and more common,'' Bush said as he campaigned yesterday in Wisconsin. ''As president, I will work to build a culture that respects life.''
Bush won the support of conservative Republicans by pledging that as president he would reverse Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion, and ban late-term abortions. As he has tried to woo women, who make up a majority of the undecided voters, he has downplayed the issue. Now, Bush is in a position of opposing what many view as a safe and early form of abortion.
''Bush would like to submerge his antichoice positions as he tries to capture the presidency,'' said Betsy Cavendish, legal director of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League. ''He should be worried about today's decision, because it underscores that he is opposed to a woman's right to choose in the first weeks of a pregnancy.''
Cavendish called the FDA's action ''a huge victory'' that would energize abortion-rights activists to campaign for Gore between now and the election. NARAL endorsed the vice president earlier this year.
But Ralph Reed, a Bush adviser and former head of the Christian Coalition, said the RU-486 decision could hurt Gore, because it will not be popular with Roman Catholics, who make up 20 to 30 percent of the voters in the hotly contested states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Missouri.
''I still tend to think abortion is an issue that slightly favors Bush,'' Reed said. ''To many ethnic Catholics, the idea of the government approving a pill that essentially causes an abortion is deeply disturbing.''
Reed said he expected the FDA's decision to both mobilize Gore supporters and galvanize groups that oppose abortion, such as the National Right to Life Committee, which has endorsed Bush.
Gore, in statement released by the vice president's office instead of the campaign, stressed that science and safety, not politics, paved the way for the FDA's approval of the abortion-inducing drug mifepristone after more than five years in the regulatory pipeline.
''Today's decision is not about politics, but the health and safety of American women and a woman's fundamental right to choose,'' Gore said.
At a press conference on Capitol Hill, a group of Republican lawmakers and groups that oppose abortion accused the Clinton administration of politicizing the regulatory process, and endangering women's health, to give Gore a possible advantage with some swing voters.
''This administration has completely politicized the drug-approval process, proving they are more concerned with rewarding the abortion lobby than the safety of the drugs that are approved,'' said Senator Tim Hutchinson, Republican of Arkansas.
Hutchinson accused the administration of pressuring the FDA to accelerate the regulatory process and ''rushing a drug through that will take lives instead of saving them.'' He called for Senate hearings to probe the FDA's approval of the abortion pill.
The Clinton administration did push for approval of the abortion drug known as RU-486. In one of his first executive orders in 1993, President Clinton reversed the ban imposed by President George Bush that had blocked anyone from bringing the pill into the United States. RU-486 was first produced in France and marketed throughout Europe.
Yesterday, President Clinton defended the FDA, saying it had ''bent over backwards'' in its inquiry, and he denied pressure was applied to secure the drug's approval.
''The FDA is basically doing it's job,'' Clinton said. ''It's now done its job. And I regret that some members of the other party apparently have already tried to politicize it.''
Representative Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican, said he planned to propose legislation that would strictly limit which doctors could administer mifepristone. Members said it was very unlikely anything would happen in the waning days of this session of Congress.
In his remarks, Bush did not say that he would try to overturn the decision if he is elected. But Representative J.C. Watts, also an Oklahoma Republican, said he was ''certain'' a new administration ''with moral leadership and a commitment to family will reverse this Clinton-Gore decision.''
''I think this was a major blow to opponents of abortion, and some of them will definitely try to put the issue into presidential politics to rally the right wing of the Republican Party,'' said Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation. , which spearheaded the drive for RU-486's approval. ''That just makes the stakes higher for our side.''
