WASHINGTON -- U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter yesterday made significant progress in his attempt to beat back an attempt by anti-abortion conservatives to deprive him of the chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Sen. Arlen Specter

After a closed door meeting of the panel's 10 current Republicans, the current chairman, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said he expected Specter to have the support of the committee.

"Nobody in the meeting was against Arlen," Hatch told reporters, Specter at his side. "Sen. Specter handled himself very well, and, frankly, I'm for him, as I should be."

The support of the current panel, though important, is no guarantee that Specter, a supporter of abortion rights, will win the chairmanship since not all of them, Hatch included, will be on the committee when the new Congress convenes in January.

Hatch has to step down as chairman because of Senate term limit rules, and, according to Senate custom, Specter should get the job because of his seniority.

Despite picking up the crucial support yesterday, Specter stopped short of declaring victory.

"No chickens have hatched, and I don't count any chickens until they're hatched," he said. "But with Hatch beside me, I'm a little less unconfident."

Specter said he may speak tomorrow to the full caucus of Republican senators, which meets to vote on rules for the Congress that takes office in January.

Mississippi Senator Trent Lott, a former Republican Senate leader, also endorsed Specter and predicted that the issue of his taking over the committee would be resolved before a formal vote in January.

"It will be clear before the week is out that Specter is the new chairman," Lott said. Specter is "a team player most of the time. When his vote was needed he was there."

Specter has been under fire from social conservatives following remarks he made after winning a fifth term that a Supreme Court nominee opposed to the Roe v. Wade abortion-rights decision probably could not be confirmed by the Senate. The Judiciary Committee holds hearings on judicial nominees and decides whether to forward their names to the full Senate for confirmation.

Over the weekend Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said he had been disheartened by Specter's views, but he also suggested Specter still had time to make his case that he would preside fairly over confirmation hearings for Bush's judicial nominees.

In recent days, Specter has said repeatedly he would not apply an abortion "litmus test" to judicial nominees and has pointed out that he has supported recent Supreme Court nominees hostile to Roe v. Wade.

Yesterday, some anti-abortion activists gathered on Capitol Hill to warn Frist, Bush and even conservative ally Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., that allowing Specter to become chairman would break faith with abortion opponents and others for whom "judicial activism" was a galvanizing election issue.

"Pro-life and pro-family Americans spent countless hours canvassing and phoning to help re-elect President Bush," the Rev. Pat Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition told a lunchtime "pray-in" outside the Dirksen Senate Office Building. "We did not make that sacrifice to wake up on Nov. 3 to find that Arlen Specter was going to be the next chairman of the Judiciary Committee."

Speakers at the event, which attracted two dozen participants and nearly as many reporters and camera operators, warned Frist and the White House not to alienate the conservative coalition that had helped bring the president and the Republican Party victory on Nov. 2.

"What Sen. Frist needs right now is the same willing coalition that brought [Republicans] their victory and a second term for President Bush," said the Rev. Rob Schenk of the National Clergy Council.

"No longer can the Republican Party say to evangelicals and Catholics, 'Thank you -- now go away," Mahoney added.

Rabbi Yehuda Levin, representing Orthodox Jewish organizations, said: "We need the president of the United States to speak out on Specter as forcefully as he spoke about Trent Lott," whose seeming praise of Strom Thurmond's segregationist presidential campaign in 1948 resulted in Lott's yielding the majority leader's post to Frist.

The speakers at the rally warned that they would continue to campaign against Specter into January, when a newly constituted Judiciary Committee will formally elect a chairman subject to confirmation by the Senate Republican Conference.

"This is a two-month battle," Mahoney said.

That the protesters might not receive immediate gratification was suggested by the fact that Frist, who conferred with Specter yesterday, promised them a meeting within five to seven days, according to Mahoney. The anti-Specter activists were invited to meet yesterday with the majority leader's staff.