Campaign Notes Abortion

Now that Republican challenger Pat Buchanan has promised to refrain from Bush bashing, the White House can afford to reach out to more moderate voters. Among them: pro-choice Republican women. That was the political explanation behind the Administration's decision last week to allow patients in federally financed family-planning clinics to receive abortion advice under limited circumstances.

The new guidelines, which were announced by the Department of Health and Human Services, would protect the doctor-patient relationship in all respects and would permit doctors to refer women to facilities that provide abortions. Even under the new rules, however, nurses and other medical counselors are still prohibited from referring patients to abortion clinics and from providing advice to women about the procedure.

By allowing doctors to use their own judgment on whether to discuss the abortion option, the Bush Administration is trying to dissociate itself from the "gag rule," issued under Ronald Reagan in 1988, without offending conservative voters. But abortion-rights advocates immediately condemned the new rules since most health-care professionals at federally funded clinics are not doctors.