BUSH CITES ABORTION 'TRAGEDY' IN CALL TO 67,000 PROTESTERS

DEMONSTRATIONS HELD AT D.C. CLINICS

President Bush told 67,000 cheering antiabortion demonstrators yesterday that abortion on demand is "an American tragedy" and that he will work for reversal of the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing it.

"After years of sober and serious reflection on the issue, this is what I think," Bush told March for Life activists already buoyed by mild weather and a turnout on the Ellipse exceeding a similar protest last year. "I think the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade was wrong and should be overturned. I think America needs a human life amendment . . . . I promise the president hears you now and stands with you in a cause that must be won."

Bush made his remarks over an amplified telephone hookup from the Oval Office, as President Reagan had done. Less than two hours earlier, Vice President Quayle met with 15 antiabortion leaders in the Old Executive Office Building to assure them of the administration's support.

Throughout the day, antiabortion activists loosely affiliated with the confrontational network known as Operation Rescue held illegal protests at health clinics in the Washington area. District police arrested 153 protesters at a Northwest clinic; other area protests did not result in arrests or serious injuries, police said.

Operation Rescue's national leader, Randall Terry, spent the morning at the March For Life, greeting, among others, New York's Roman Catholic Cardinal John J. O'Connor, who closed the rally with a prayer.

Yesterday's 16th annual march and related events were marked by a sense of optimism on the part of antiabortion activists, who are encouraged by the Supreme Court's decision this month to reexamine the principles of the Roe decision.

"There is a new breeze blowing," Charles A. McNeely, president of a Christian college in Illinois, told the crowd. "We march for a new decade, a new president, a new court."

The case that the court is using to reconsider Roe-Webster v. Reproductive Health Services-comes from Missouri, as some of more than 1,000 Missourians at the rally were happy to say.

"Maybe next year when we come, it won't be to march. Maybe we'll come to dance and celebrate," said Chryssi Luepker, 15, who rode on a bus for 20 hours from St. Louis with other members of an antiabortion teen-agers organization.

Faye Furlow, a mother from St. Louis and one of only a few blacks at the march, said she couldn't afford to take part in previous demonstrations. "I think there are lots of blacks who would like to come, but who don't have the economic means to do so," said Furlow.

The attention the antiabortion side relishes also was reflected in a flurry of activity yesterday from their opponents. The Planned Parenthood Federation of America, an abortion rights organization, presented a statement signed by 10 civil rights leaders denouncing the comparison that antiabortion activists make between their efforts and the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

The Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights, an umbrella organization of about 50 groups, announced a campaign to "mobilize constituents nationwide to come out of the pew and into the streets in support of reproductive freedom."

Abortion rights activists chose not to hold major counterdemonstrations this year, although about 10 men and women posting "Keep Abortion Legal" signs greeted the March For Life when it arrived at the Supreme Court. A few antiabortion protesters snatched the signs and ripped them up, but march leaders pleaded for peace and most in the crowd seemed content to taunt their opponents.

The demonstration had gone peacefully throughout the day at the Ellipse. U.S. Park Police calculated the crowd at 67,000, about 17,000 more than last year.

"Oh boy, this is like the '60s revisited," said Joe Conrad, 20, student from Harrisburg, Pa., as he searched a sea of faces, strollers and placards for friends from Shippensburg State College.

"Don't you dare say that," his friend Shawn Liddick, 21, shot back. "We're the '80s . . . . We're the new guard."

The number of young demonstrators-members of a generation that has known nothing other than legalized abortion-was striking.

One boy said his sister had an abortion last year. Several said they have friends who have had abortions. Almost all said that their parents, particularly their mothers, have preached to them about the evils of abortion for as long as they can remember.

Some said they were absolutely certain abortion is wrong in any circumstance, even if a woman is raped or her life is in danger. "No exceptions, none," said Amy Kulina, 19, also a Shippensburg student. "I'm adopted. I wouldn't be here today if my mother had had an abortion."

Others weren't so sure. "I've been coming to these marches since I was 9," said Mary Nejfelt, 19, from Catonsville, Md. "And I argue with my mother. You see, I believe, if the woman's life is in danger, the decision is between her and God. I'm a diabetic, and if I were raped and my life was in danger, I'd have no qualms about getting an abortion."

In a change from some previous years, the White House provided only a one-way hookup from the Oval Office to the Ellipse, prompting Nellie J. Gray, March for Life's president, to chastize Bush's staff publicly for not permitting a dialogue between the president and march leaders.

Her remark was the only note of discord, however, at the noon rally. More than a dozen members of Congress, mostly Republican men, addressed the group. In the early afternoon, demonstrators marched down Constitution Avenue toward the offices of their individual members of Congress.

Quayle has long opposed abortion, although he has never been an activist on abortion or other social issues. A recent biography of his Senate career quotes him as eschewing a spot on the Judiciary Committee, where many social issues arise.

"I know one committee I don't want," Quayle is quoted as saying of Judiciary. "They are going to be dealing with all those issues, like abortion, busing, voting rights, {school} prayer. I'm not interested in those issues, and I want to stay as far away from them as I can."

Gary Bauer, a former domestic policy adviser for President Reagan who attended the meeting with Quayle and the antiabortion group, said the tone of that session "was fairly upbeat. The pro-life movement feels we have a pro-life president and vice president. That will be 12 years in a row."

Bush has expressed a variety of stands on abortion over 10 years. But Bauer said yesterday that activists were pleased with what he called Bush's "very, very strong" statements on their behalf. Bush's call should persude those who are not already convinced that the president's antiabortion position is "not simply a political conversion," Bauer said.

Staff writer Patrice Gaines-Carter contributed to this report.

Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington Post and may not include subsequent corrections.