WASHINGTON -- Abortion is the one of the most polarizing issues in politics, and the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision is viewed by many Americans -- President Bush included -- as an example of judicial activism. So you might expect that the subject would have come up in a conversation between the president and Harriet Miers, the White House counsel and Bush intimate whom the president has nominated to the Supreme Court.

Harriet Miers Related coverage Bush defends choice of Miers for Supreme Court

But when he was asked if he had ever talked with Ms. Miers about abortion -- even as a friend -- the president gave the careful answer: "Not to my recollection."

Soon after the press conference, the abortion-rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America released a statement complaining that "President Bush refused to say whether his nominee for retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's seat would uphold the fundamental freedom of a woman's right to choose. Contrary to President Bush's comments, Americans deserve to know whether Miers would shift the court in a direction that would put our rights and liberties in jeopardy."

Here we go again.

As they did with John Roberts, who was originally nominated to replace Justice O'Connor, activists, senators and journalists are scrutinizing Ms. Miers' statements, public positions and even her church affiliation for clues about her position on a procedure that some Americans view as a matter of fundamental rights and others deplore as murder.

And, as in the confirmation process for Chief Justice Roberts, both the nominee and the president are making that deconstruction difficult, even as anti-abortion activists who form an important part of Mr. Bush's political base are being told they have nothing to worry about.

On Monday, Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Council for Law and Justice founded by the Rev. Pat Robertson, said he would be spreading the word that as president of the Texas Bar Association in the 1990s, Ms. Miers had tried to roll back the American Bar Association's support for abortion rights.

Yet the fact that Ms. Miers didn't want the national lawyer's group to take a position on the divisive issue of abortion isn't proof that she was opposed to abortion rights herself. Her predecessor as head of the Texas bar association also thought the ABA position unwise, though he was personally pro-choice.

And yesterday Mr. Bush, while insisting that "because of our closeness, I know the character" of Ms. Miers, insisted that he hadn't used an anti-abortion "litmus test" when he chose her to succeed Justice O'Connor.

Some opponents of abortion took comfort from a quote from Texas Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht, a longtime friend of Ms. Miers, who said "her personal views are consistent with that of evangelical Christians."

But Justice Hecht also said he couldn't predict how Ms. Miers might vote on a challenge to Roe v. Wade.

"If you're asking, 'Is she going vote to overrule Roe v. Wade, or Lawrence v. Texas [a 2003 decision striking down Texas' law against same-sex sodomy], I don't know that you can ask anyone that because you don't know until you are there."

Some opponents of abortion also see hope in the fact that Ms. Miers attends the conservative Valley View Christian Church in Dallas, whose pastor describes it as "very pro-life." But if liberal opponents of her nomination were to inquire about her religious beliefs, they would surely provoke a complaint by Republicans and that Ms. Miers was being subjected to an unconstitutional "religious test "for office.

When Chief Justice Roberts, a Roman Catholic, was asked if his religious views would prevent him from applying a precedent of the Supreme Court, he said no -- an answer Ms. Miers also could provide without talking about the content of her faith.

Even if it were discovered that Ms. Miers had religious objections to abortion or had criticized Roe v. Wade, that would not guarantee that, as a Supreme Court justice, she would vote to overturn that precedent. In any case, Ms. Miers is likely to be just as circumspect in answering questions about Roe as Chief Justice Roberts was. The result in the Roberts confirmation was what Sen. Arlen Specter R-Pa., the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, called a "minuet" and what some Democrats denounced as an exercise in evasion.

Some legal observers insist that such evasion is inevitable given the persisting polarization in the country over legalized abortion. That phenomenon also may explain why President Bush chose Ms. Miers, who has never served as a judge, over two alternative candidates from Texas who have criticized Roe -- 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judges Edith H. Jones and Emilio Garza.

Michael Greve, head of the Federalism Project at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, believes that as long as the court has the final say on issues like abortion, a return to the subdued confirmations of the past is impossible.

Mr. Greve said the only way out of the politicization of the confirmation process is "at the same time very easy and next to impossible. The easy way is one single sentence in one single Supreme Court decision saying, 'There is no constitutional right to abortion.' "

Even some liberal constitutional experts agree that the controversy over Roe v. Wade drives the judicial selection process and that interest in Supreme Court nominations might wane if Roe were overruled.

Some abortion-rights supporters argue that if Roe were overruled, the larger right of privacy would be in danger. But Mark Tushnet, a law professor of Georgetown University, said that if the court repudiated Roe, removing the issue of abortion to Congress and the state legislatures, it need not disturb less-controversial decisions.

At his confirmation hearings Chief Justice Roberts declined to say whether he would be open to overruling Roe v. Wade. Ms. Miers is unlikely to be any more forthcoming. That means supporters and opponents of abortion will continue to try to glean what she thinks from whatever sources are available. The familiar guessing game has begun, and it will continue until Ms. Miers is confirmed or rejected by the Senate.