New Kind of Censorship

For years controversy about censorship in this country has been limited to issues of national security and obscenity. Now President Reagan plans to censor medical information currently being given to 1.5 million American women because he does not like the subject--abortion.

In 1970 Congress passed the Public Health Service Act. Title X of the act provides funding for about 4,500 family-planning centers across the nation. These centers are authorized to dispense birth-control counseling, including information about abortion, and, when necessary, abortion referrals to private clinics. However, the legislation specifically prohibits federal funds from being used for the abortion procedure or for lobbying.

President Reagan has never wavered in his stand against abortion. Now he has announced plans to rewrite the regulations that govern the Public Health Service Act. If he has his way, women who are served by the family-planning centers will no longer be informed of their legal, and sometimes medically necessary, right to an abortion. Can a President do this? Yes. Does Congress have the opportunity to approve the administrative change? No, not without court action.

Serious constitutional issues may be involved in the President’s proposal, among them the extent to which a President is allowed to override the original intent of congressional legislation.

These issues will have to be settled in the courts if Congress chooses to contest Reagan’s proposed regulation change.

But more important would be the effect on hundreds of high-risk pregnant women. What will happen to the pregnant woman with AIDS whose unborn baby has a 30% to 50% chance of contracting her fatal disease? Or the drug-addicted and pregnant teen-age girl, the diabetic or the woman whose unborn child has little chance of being normal because she became pregnant while using an interuterine contraception?

Unfortunately, the President inappropriately prefers to restrain the flow of possibly life-saving medical information to low-income women--information that is readily available to women who can afford private medical care. Congress must take whatever steps are necessary to prevent this injustice.