WHAT I WOULD HAVE TOLD THE DEMOCRATS; ON THE ABORTION ISSUE, THE PLATFORM IS NEITHER MODERATE NOR MIDDLE OF THE ROAD

Mr. Casey is governor of Pennsylvania. This column originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal.

The Democratic National Convention was carefully choreographed to highlight the unity of our party and its moderate, middle-of-the-road platform. The new Democratic Party was presented to the American people as a large "circle of friends." Unfortunately, on the key issue of abortion, the circle was drawn very tightly by the National Abortion Rights Action League, to exclude anyone, such as myself, who does not toe the party line.

On the abortion issue, the platform is neither moderate nor middle-of-the-road. On this issue, the platform is radical and extreme, espousing abortion on demand. And, believe me, on the issue the delegates were anything but friendly. The New Covenant has something for just about everyone everyone, that is, except the unborn child and the millions of Americans who oppose abortion on demand.

I was denied the opportunity to address the delegates in New York because I oppose abortion. To add insult to injury, a pro-abortion Republican woman from my home state was show cased as a featured speaker. She appeared on the platform with Kate Michelman of NARAL and Democratic Party Chairman Ron Brown as I watched from the upper reaches of Madison Square Garden. When the national party denied me the right to be heard, it was really denying Pennsylvania the right to be heard.

How soon they forget.

It was Pennsylvania's Democratic senatorial election victory in 1991 that gave the national party new life by exposing for the first time, at the grass roots, the weaknesses of the Bush-Quayle administration. But instead of reaching out to Democrats across the country who voted for Messrs. Reagan and Bush primarily because of their position on the abortion issue, the Democratic National Committee acts these days like a wholly owned subsidiary of the National Abortion Rights Action League.

I have urged my party to re-examine its position on abortion in the context of the Democratic Party's historic and noble mission of protecting the powerless. I have challenged my party to be open to debate and discussion; to move the Democratic platform away from a lock-step litmus test that advocates abortion on demand and toward a more mainstream position.

Instead, throughout the platform formulation process, the deck was stacked against any attempt to change the national party's abortion-on-demand position. I believe this position is wrong in principle and out of the mainstream. I also believe this position is politically self defeating, because it excludes not only millions of pro-life voters, but also those additional millions who are ambivalent but believe the number of abortions should be reduced and the practice made subject to reasonable regulation.

My personal view, which I believe is shared by millions of Americans, is that our party should have made a strong statement in its platform that the unborn child has a fundamental right to life. At the same time, I recognize that many people hold strongly to an opposing view. Indeed, an entire generation has grown to adulthood since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which held that the right to choose an abortion was a privacy right protected by the Constitution.

But diversity of opinion is no reason for a party ostensibly so committed to change to reject change in its abortion position out of hand. At a minimum, the party should have explicitly rejected abortion on demand and endorsed the principle that voters, through their elected representatives in the states, should have the right to enact reasonable regulations restricting abortion, such as those in the Pennsylvania law just upheld by the Supreme Court in (ital) Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Instead, compounding the error of an extreme national platform, national Democratic leaders are now calling for passage of the so-called Freedom of Choice Act, which would impose an extreme and radical abortion regime on the entire country. Congress is expected to vote on the bill in the next two weeks.

This bill is bad for our country and bad for our party. It is not in our national interest. It will further divide the American people and do nothing to help establish consensus on this volatile issue.

The American people, acting through their elected representatives in the state legislatures, should not be cut out of this process by having imposed on them a "one size fits all" federal mandate, binding all states to abortion on demand. Consensus and compromise, reflecting regional differences on this issue, would no longer be possible.

The Freedom of Choice Act would prohibit not only any future state efforts to restrict abortion, but would also repeal existing state laws such as the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act. The parental consent, informed consent and 24-hour waiting period provisions in our law would be nullified.

The Freedom of Choice Act would also repeal any significant restriction on abortions in the seventh, eighth and ninth months. Under the Pennsylvania law, an abortion is not permitted after 24 weeks of pregnancy, except when the mother is in a life-threatening situation or when she would experience substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function by carrying the child to term. The Freedom of Choice Act would nullify the "substantial impairment" restriction and permit abortion in the seventh, eighth and ninth months if a physician decides the abortion is necessary to the mother's well-being, taking into account such factors as her age and her physical, emotional, psychological and familial condition. This amounts to a blank check for third-trimester abortions.

The abortion restrictions we have enacted in Pennsylvania have been tested repeatedly in national public opinion polls and are supported overwhelmingly by 70 to 80 percent of Americans. To reject reasonable regulations like these puts the national Democratic Party far out of the mainstream and on the extreme radical fringe of the most important value issue of our time.

The ink wasn't even dry on the Supreme Court's decision in (ital) Planned Parenthood v. Casey when the pro-choice forces ran to Big Brother, the federal government, advocating passage of a federal law mandating abortion on demand. Isn't it ironic that the same people who decry government intervention in this decision are now demanding that the federal government mandate their extreme, radical view nationwide?

The Democratic Party has always claimed to be the voice of the powerless and the voiceless. I cannot understand why the national Democratic Party does not embrace unborn children as its natural constituency. Why are not unborn children included in the New Covenant? Why are the unborn left out and left behind?

At the Democratic National Convention, some Minnesota delegates wore large red buttons that proclaimed "I'm a pro-life Democrat. I want my party back."

Not a bad rallying cry for the future.

Mr. Casey is governor of Pennsylvania. This column originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal.