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SACRAMENTO — For three decades, the legal right to abortion has been a fundamental cornerstone of American life. 

Suddenly, however, despite polls showing it near the bottom of voters’ concerns, abortion tops the agenda for the California’s March 5 Republican primary for governor. 

During their debate Feb. 13, the top three GOP candidates bickered about abortion, which Democratic Gov. Gray Davis injected into the race with a series of attack ads claiming Republican former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan is soft in his support of abortion rights. 

All of that comes in a state where, experts say, the governor has a limited practical effect on the issue. 

California history, since Gov. Ronald Reagan signed California’s first abortion rights law in 1967, and the U.S. Supreme Court issued its 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion, shows years of such abrasive abortion politics. Lately, it’s grown quieter with time and establishment of legal precedents. 

“It has changed quite a bit over the years. In the 1970s and 1980s there were tons and tons of anti-abortion legislation,” said David Alois, electoral affairs director for Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California. 

Though legislators wrangled incessantly during those decades over publicly funded abortions and parental consent issues, California’s courts largely set the rules. In 2000, the state reported approximately 87,000 abortions. 

Only one governor, Republican George Deukmejian from 1983 to 1991, maintained an active anti-abortion agenda. Yet his attempts to deny Medi-Cal funding for abortions and require minors to get parental or court permission first repeatedly failed. 

A bill Deukmejian signed in 1987 requiring parental consent faced an immediate injunction by a San Francisco Superior Court. Nine years later the California Supreme Court sided with Deukmejian, ruling 4-3 that requiring parental consent was constitutional. One year later a new court — with two new appointees by moderate Republican Gov. Pete Wilson — voted 4-3 to reverse the decision. 

Wilson and the Legislature also ended 12 consecutive years of budget amendments banning Medi-Cal funding for abortions. State courts had quashed them all. Wilson also ended Deukmejian’s practice of banning the funding in his proposed budgets. 

Activists on both sides of the abortion debate said courts are why a governor’s race matters. 

“Obviously, the judicial appointments are always key,” said Jan Carroll, legislative analyst for the California ProLife Council. 

While campaign insiders defend their abortion strategies and activists on both sides of the issue follow them closely, outsiders shake their heads. 

“That Davis ad is crazy. It goes way too far,” said Paul Milbury, a Glendale businessman who sells historic guns to collectors. Milbury, who calls himself “anti-abortion,” said, “Everything in government now is strictly emotional. They always try to scare us.” 

Davis’ attacks make “it sound like Riordan’s a rabid anti-abortionist, and I don’t see him that way,” Milbury said. “And again, he’s not going to be doing anything about abortion even if he was. It’s a federal issue.” 

At Phoenix Books in San Luis Obispo, owner Bruce Miller called it more “dogma to divide the world between Republicans and Democrats.” He described himself as “pro-choice.” 

Indeed, for the sudden insistence on a “litmus test” for abortion, as Republican candidate Bill Simon complained last Wednesday, the level of interest of voters in abortion is minimal, polls show. 

The state’s newest Field Poll, released the day of the Republican debate, showed abortion ranked 25th among 28 issues that voters care about. Nearly four in 10 of 1,022 people polled said they were “not concerned” about abortion. 

Health care and schools topped the list. 

Field pollster Mark DiCamillo said Davis created the abortion issue with TV ads to push it into the Republican primary. The strategy, he said, could be called “cynical,” but it puts Republican candidates into a “no-win” situation over an issue that divides their party. Davis campaign spokesman Roger Salazar admitted that issues of education, health, public safety and transportation are more important to people than abortion.