Take the issue of violence against providers. Though Roe vs. Wade occurred in 1973, anti-abortion harassment and violence did not become a serious issue until the mid-1980s, when incidents of firebombings, threats, blockades and the stalking of providers escalated dramatically.

Operation Rescue, the group that brought thousands of protesters to clinics across the country, debuted in 1987. By the following year, 85 percent of the freestanding clinics in the U.S. had reported some form of harassment, and by 1992, the last year of Bush's presidency, there were nearly 200 recorded "violent" incidents at clinics and nearly 3,000 incidents of "disruption."

The response of Reagan and Bush to the situation was a thunderous silence. Neither decried events which, had they occurred in any other field of healthcare, would have provoked an immediate presidential condemnation. Providers, their lawyers and abortion-rights activists vainly sought to convince local and federal officials to take these emerging patterns of anti-abortion activity seriously. But judges routinely praised protesters blocking clinics and let them off with minimal or no punishment -- if prosecutors charged them at all.

But when Clinton took office, the climate of official responsiveness to providers' concerns changed. As soon as it passed Congress, Clinton signed the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which makes it a federal offense to impede access to abortion clinics. The murder of Slepian and others in the abortion-providing community shows that not all violence against providers, especially extreme acts by lone individuals, can be prevented. But the total number of disruptive events at clinics -- blockades, sieges and so on -- has dropped significantly since Clinton's talk and action replaced the official attitude of benign neglect.

The differences between the Clinton-Gore administration and the ones preceding it are not lost on the pro-choice community. The administration, says Vicki Saporta, executive director of the National Abortion Federation, the major professional association of abortion providers in North America, "has played an important role in protecting abortion providers from acts of violence and terrorism ... [The administration's approach] has saved lives and made a real difference for the healthcare professionals who provide safe abortion services to women."

Life under a President Bush would be a different story. A conservative attorney general appointed by Bush need not loudly or aggressively proclaim support for anti-clinic violence to spread cheer among the party's anti-abortion base. Without the personal fervor that Reno -- with the full backing of Clinton and Gore -- brought to the issue, without that visible commitment and a clear message to law enforcement agencies that protecting abortion providers is a top priority, the damage -- in terms of the messages that providers get -- will be done.

Nor is the story over with respect to RU-486. In the first presidential debate, Bush responded evasively to a question about the drug by saying that the approval was essentially a done deal and thus there was no further role for the president. But he undoubtedly knows well that a president can do plenty to effectively nullify the FDA's September action. In more partisan settings since that first debate, Bush has told cheering crowds that he would call for a review of the approval itself.

He has also declared his support for the Coburn-Hutchinson bill sponsored by two anti-abortion stalwarts in the House. It would impose significant restrictions on the use of this drug, its main goal being to allow only physicians who perform surgical abortions to prescribe RU-486. In contrast, the recent FDA approval stipulated that any doctor could administer this drug as long as the physician had arranged for backup services, should they prove necessary, from a colleague who performs surgical abortions.

Should this anti-abortion initiative become law, it would ensure that approval of the drug would not increase the total number of providers and hence overall abortion access -- precisely the reason the pro-choice movement worked for 12 years to bring RU-486 to the United States in the first place. And a new head of the FDA could find many other legal ways to limit its availability and use.

So could anti-abortion judges appointed by a President Bush, since the courts will eventually rule on the various regulations states impose on how RU-486 can be obtained and administered. Will midlevel clinicians, such as physician assistants and nurse-midwives who already perform abortions in the handful of states that currently permit them, be allowed to offer women the drug? Will the rigorous protocol requiring women taking the drug to make three separate office visits be modified as new data becomes available? Will all state laws applying to surgical abortion be extended to this very different procedure?

In some states, for example, surgical abortion providers are required to personally inspect what are called the "fetal remains" after an abortion. This is obviously an inappropriate regulation for a RU-486 abortion, which essentially induces a miscarriage and is most likely to cause the woman to expel the products of conception in her own home.