Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 2, 1990 TAG: 9006040186
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The rules are unwise. They are unethical. And they ought to be declared unconstitutional - not on the shifting sands of Roe vs. Wade, but on the bedrock of the First Amendment and its free-speech guarantee.
In Boston, a federal appeals court has voided the regulations, in large part because of First Amendment considerations. But in New York, a federal appeals court has upheld them. This week, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal of the decision in New York.
Some 3,900 family-planning clinics across America, serving 5 million low-income women each year, get federal support - now about $200 million annually - under the 1970 Public Health Service Act. That law prohibits use of the money "in programs where abortion is a method of family planning."
For years, the provision had been interpreted with common sense: Federally funded clinics could neither perform abortions nor urge clients to get them. But the 1988 regulations went much further, banning virtually any mention of abortion to clinic clients.
The regulations are unwise in their naive assumption that poor women otherwise would never hear of the medical (and, since Roe vs. Wade, legal) option of abortion. Even low-income women know that unwanted pregnancies can be aborted. What they may not have is accurate information beyond that basic fact, or knowledge of how to obtain a reasonably safe abortion.
The regulations are unethical in their requirement that health-care professionals, including physicians, keep clients and patients in ignorance.
Right or wrong, abortion is legal. Right or wrong, aborting a pregnancy sometimes causes less medical risk than carrying it to term. The idea of preventing a health-care professional from disclosing to a client highly relevant information about the client's options and health is, in a word, repugnant.
Repugnant, too, is the rules' assault on First Amendment liberties.
Granted, nobody has a "right" to receive public money. Granted, too, the government legitimately can expect to get that which it pays for - in this instance, family-planning services that do not promote abortion.
But there's a difference between promoting abortion and providing information about it. The 1988 Reagan rules not only go beyond anything contemplated in the 1970 law; they command silence about a procedure that is both legal and highly relevant to the lives of many of those who seek help at federally funded clinics.
Government money can buy many things. Under the Constitution, however, it should not be used to buy muzzles.
by CNB