Supposedly concerned about equal protection rights (for the first time anyone can remember), the court's conservative majority jerry-built a ruling that disenfranchised possibly thousands of Florida voters and handed the presidency to George W. Bush. Legions of Americans were stunned and disillusioned.

Not among them were the women and men of the National Abortion Rights Action League in Washington, D.C. Said NARAL executive vice president Alice Germond: "There was a reason we handed out buttons during the presidential campaign that said, 'It's the Supreme Court, Stupid.' I don't think people truly appreciated the importance of the Supreme Court until now. Those of us in the pro-choice community have been aware of it for a long time."

Over the past two decades, thanks in large part to rabidly anti-choice political activists and presidents such as Ronald Reagan and the first George Bush, the modest federal protections of Roe vs. Wade have been whittled to the barest of bones. (If you question "modest," read the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision. It does not, as so many anti-abortion politicians like to pretend, sanction "abortion on demand.")

Since the 1994 takeover of Congress by the Republican right, 134 pieces of anti-abortion legislation have made their way into the House and Senate. This is more than six times the number of similar bills introduced between 1982 and 1992. Of the 134, pro-choice supporters have prevailed in only 24.

Meanwhile, anti-abortion state legislators and governors, such as President- elect Bush, have denied safe abortions to poor women and teenagers and reduced access for women who can afford them. According to NARAL, 264 anti-choice measures have passed state legislatures, 45 of them just this year.

Until his "compassionate conservative" quest for the White House necessitated a lower decibel level on the abortion issue, Bush was an outspoken enemy of legal abortion. He has not only pledged to help overturn Roe vs. Wade, he has signed into law 18 anti-abortion provisions during his six years as governor of Texas.

Next month, Bush will become president with the power to appoint 136 vacant federal judgeships and probably one or more justices to the high court during his term. His ideal judicial model: the most overtly anti-choice justice on the court, Antonin Scalia. His next-favorite: another man who believes women do not deserve domain over their own wombs, Clarence Thomas.

"Politicians come and go," said Germond, "but the Supreme Court is with us a long time. Both sides of the abortion issue are certainly aware that this court has a very fragile balance. The Carhart decision (which earlier this year upheld the essence of Roe) was 5-4. One more anti-choice justice and the balance will shift."

During his campaign, Bush insisted there would be no litmus test on abortion for Supreme Court nominees. If you believe that, be sure to look on Inauguration Day for that squadron of pink pigs that is scheduled to fly over the Capitol.

A more accurate indication of how it's really going to be came last week from a couple of radical right powerhouses.

In a New York Times op-ed piece, "family values" champ Gary Bauer told Bush to immediately "name a pro-life attorney general" and "also nominate Supreme Court justices who believe the same." In Congress, House Majority Whip Tom DeLay included the obliteration of Roe vs. Wade as one of "the things we have been dreaming about we can now do unfettered."

Some dream. Gone with Bill Clinton is the fetter of a pro-choice president's veto. And, if senators who support abortion rights do not stay true to their principles, gone too will be a razor-thin, pro-choice majority on the Supreme Court.

Of the 50 million plurality that voted for Al Gore, Germond said: "America is pro-choice. America voted pro-choice. George Bush can't possibly see this as an anti-choice mandate."

But, as Germond knows, Bush may not need to see any mandates. Not with the friends in high places that he has. As the vociferous anti-abortion Chief Justice William Rehnquist has put it: "Roe continues to exist, but only in the way a storefront on a western movie set exists: a mere facade to give the illusion of reality."

©2000 San Francisco Chronicle

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