Pressing the Abortion Issue

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Campaign 84

Ferraro's stand is attacked by bishops, defended by Democrats

Rather than fading, the divisive issue intensified. Democratic Vice-Presidential Candidate Geraldine Ferraro found herself under seemingly concerted attack by Roman Catholic bishops for failing to embrace the church's position on abortion. Presidential Candidate Walter Mondale ran into a buzz saw of antiabortion demonstrators in the Deep South and felt compelled to defend his religious beliefs. Despite evidence to the contrary, Vice President George Bush said that he could not recall supporting any type of federal funding for abortion in his primary race against Ronald Reagan four years ago. The President, meanwhile, basked in the presence and lavish praise of a Roman Catholic Cardinal in Pennsylvania.

During the emotional week, two Catholics who are Democratic officeholders, New York Governor Mario Cuomo and Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy, sought to cool passions with a well-reasoned defense of their own—and by implication, Ferraro's—refusal to seek laws that would impose Catholic moral positions on all of U.S. society. Cuomo, more restrained than in his stirring Democratic Convention keynote speech but just as articulate, drew a standing ovation from an overflow crowd at the University of Notre Dame after a 53-minute discourse in which he asked a pointed question of his fellow Catholics: "Are we asking government to make criminal what we believe to be sinful because we ourselves can't stop committing the sin?"

The continuing debate over the proper role of religious leaders in trying to influence public policy and the conflicting pressures on elected officials who hold strong religious beliefs distracted Mondale and Ferraro from their planned campaign strategies. The two Democratic running mates were almost unable to focus attention on the many issues they want to employ against Reagan in their long-shot battle to wipe out the President's commanding lead in popular support. The furor sublimated Mondale's long-awaited unveiling of his plan to slash the huge federal deficit by two-thirds within four years (see following story). The only hope for the Democrats in the reli gious controversy was that a backlash might grow against the intrusion of the bishops, as well as Protestant Fundamentalists, into partisan politics.

The assault on Ferraro seemed almost gratuitous. Before addressing a pro-life convention in Altoona, Pa., New York Archbishop John J. O'Connor told reporters that Ferraro had "said some things about abortion relative to Catholic teaching which are not true." He did not immediately explain just what Ferraro had said or when she had said it. Puzzled and privately seething, the candidate tried to reach O'Connor between campaign appearances. She finally did so from Indianapolis. In what she described as a "cordial, direct and helpful" 35-minute telephone conversation, she politely asked the Archbishop what "mischaracterization" of the church position he had in mind. He cited a letter she had sent in 1982 to other Roman Catholic members of the House accompanying some literature from a group called Catholics for a Free Choice. The printed material showed, her letter said, that "the Catholic position on abortion is not monolithic and that there can be a range of personal and