Such revelations of moderation may give hope to the 65 percent of Americans who, according to polls, do not want Roe overturned. A generation, including the Bushes' 23-year-old twin daughters, has been born and ordered their lives under the social framework established by Roe.
The Supreme Court vacancy has shaken the complacency of moderate Republicans, said Darlee Crockett, a co-chair of Republicans for Choice, a group with 350,000 members affiliated with Planned Parenthood. "All these pro-choice women surrounding Bush really haven't had an opportunity where they were needed or asked about the policy, and now that's changed," she said. "I think people are going to more emboldened to speak out."
But other strategists on both sides of the abortion fight doubt whether the abortion views of women in Bush's inner circle have any influence on the president.
"Look at the policy that he has supported thus far," said Tony Perkins, president of the conservative advocacy group Family Research Council. "The most substantial pro-life legislation since 1973 has passed under his signature -- the ban on partial-birth abortion, the unborn victims of violence act, and I hope, the fetal pain act."
Nancy Keenan, president of the National Abortion Rights Action League, agreed. "I think he may surround himself with allegedly pro-choice women, but he doesn't listen to them," she said, citing abortion restrictions as well as full funding for abstinence-only education and blocked distribution for the morning-after pill. "That is part of [Republicans'] stealth campaign, to say that you support moderation when at the same time you are passing very extreme measures that really take away women's freedom and their own personal decision-making."
These assessments ignore the possibility that the women around Bush already have shaped his views.
Bush prefers to address the issue of abortion in thematic language, speaking of "a culture of life" or "changing hearts." In an interview with Danish television a few days after O'Connor's resignation, he said abortion remained "a genuine philosophical debate, a debate amongst good people -- good, decent, honorable, patriotic Americans who have a difference of opinion."
He said he had "always believed" that abortion "ought to be illegal with the exception of rape, incest, or life of the mother." Then he added, "But look, I'm a realist as well."
