51.   But those urges show that he is sensitive to the importance of the abortion issue to women and moderate voters.

52.   But there are shades of difference on the abortion issue.

53.   City folks might smirk at the notion, but the battle over hog manure cleaves the countryside the way the abortion issue divides the Catholic Church.

54.   Coming only six weeks before the presidential election, the FDA decision may reignite passions over the contentious abortion issue.

55.   Cuomo referred only obliquely to the abortion issue.

56.   Confronting the abortion issue here thus became for the Vatican a last stand.

57.   Despite his effort to reach out here, Gramm and other Republican candidates have sometimes seemed to wish that the abortion issue would fade into the background.

58.   Diamond said Dole has been fumbling with the abortion issue for months, and the rifts in his party between abortion rights advocates and antiabortion activists are real.

59.   Dole has been plagued by the abortion issue.

60.   Dole, after considerable backing and filling, recently tried to head off any embarrassing split on the abortion issue.