Marilyn Quayle Backs Some Abortions

WASHINGTON — Marilyn Quayle said Thursday she does not believe abortion should be outlawed in all cases, adding that in instances of rape “everything possible should be done to prevent a pregnancy from occurring.”

The vice president’s wife made the comment on “CBS This Morning” and seemed to provide further evidence that the Republican ticket is seeking to win back moderate voters by putting more distance between itself and the flat abortion ban urged by the platform produced at the party’s national convention.

Asked by interviewer Paula Zahn if abortion should be made illegal in all cases, Mrs. Quayle said: “No.”

When asked for examples of abortions that should be legal, Mrs. Quayle said she would prefer to discuss “why we are having so many pregnancies, why in this society we have got so many young people getting pregnant. It’s much more important to me to look at the root causes of things.”

Pressed further, she indicated that she would favor abortion in cases of rape.

“If you’re raped, you really ought to go and report it to the authorities,” Mrs. Quayle said. “And then everything possible should be done to prevent a pregnancy from occurring.”

She also said that for victims of incest, “which is one of the most sickening crimes I can think of, I could see a case for having an abortion” rather than having a child thus conceived.

Previously, Mrs. Quayle’s most prominent comment on the abortion issue came after her husband appeared July 22 on CNN’s “Larry King Live” and said that if his daughter became pregnant as an adult and decided on an abortion, “I’d support my daughter.”

Quayle hastily reaffirmed his opposition to abortion the following day and Mrs. Quayle left no room for debate on her views, saying that if the 13-year-old girl became pregnant, “She’ll take the child to term.”

The vice president hedged his support for the GOP’s abortion plank in an interview Sept. 13 on ABC’s “This Week With David Brinkley.” He said a Pennsylvania law that restricts but does not ban abortion was “a good starting point.”

President Bush also has distanced himself from the platform’s hard-line, anti-abortion position. In an interview on NBC television last month, Bush was asked what he would do if his granddaughter came to him and said she was pregnant and wanted an abortion. “I’d stand by her,” the President said.

So, he was asked, the choice would be hers? “Well, who else’s could it be?” he responded.

Some of the President’s campaign literature now says simply that he “favors reasonable restrictions on abortion.”