Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 27, 1992 TAG: 9203270474
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Under fire from physicians and other medical professionals for imposing big-brother government on medical ethics and doctor-patient relations, the Bush administration claimed last week that it was loosening the Reagan-imposed and Supreme Court-upheld "gag" on abortion counseling in some 4,000 federally funded family-planning clinics.
The clinics' patients - predominantly poor women - could be told, after all, that abortion is an option, even for nonmedical reasons, said Bush.
But the patients could receive the information only from a doctor. Other clinic personnel would still be prohibited from mentioning the A word.
With the slight relaxation of the gag rule, the president hoped to appease medical groups and millions of voters who believe abortion should be a matter of choice - but to do so in a way that would not antagonize anti-abortion forces that are an important segment of his conservative support.
As a result, his trumpeted exception to the gag rule (ordered by Ronald Reagan in 1988) is a mealy-mouthed farce.
For starters, the new guidelines do not allow as much freedom for doctors to discuss abortion as the administration allowed they would.
And almost all the counseling on pregnancy and birth control in the clinics is provided not by doctors but by nurses and other staff members.
These workers still won't be able to mention abortion, even on a "read my lips" basis. Their First Amendment rights are still being trampled on, and so are the rights of patients to receive full and complete medical information.
The new policy directed by Bush is as cynical and offensive as the old policy directed by Reagan. The president's little tilt toward freedom of speech and pro-choice voters is so politically disingenuous, it makes us want to gag.
by CNB