Family Planning Victory

A federal appeals court in Boston has said no to the Reagan Administration’s attempt to curb abortions through rules that would have curbed free speech as well. The court said that government cannot forbid federally financed family planning clinics to counsel women that abortion is a medical option in dealing with an unplanned pregnancy. The Reagan Administration’s Health and Human Services Department issued rules against such counseling last year. A federal district court said the rules could not go into effect because they interfered with free speech, and that decision has now been upheld.

The appeals court said that the government had gone beyond simply refusing to pay for abortion and interfered with a woman’s decision process “by dictating what information (she) may receive and by intruding into her relationship with her physician.” Intrusion into the relationship between patient and doctor is one of the central elements of the abortion debate. Those who favor a woman’s right to choose an abortion do not want to force that choice on anyone else. They want, however, to be left alone to make their own choice. Denial of information, in that view, is denial of choice.

Opponents of abortion have succeeded in imposing similar restrictions on U.S. aid to family planning programs outside this country. Reps. Chester G. Atkins (D-Mass.) and Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) have introduced legislation to end the restrictions, arguing that Washington should not impose on foreign aid conditions that would be unconstitutional in this country.

The Boston decision regrettably is not the final word on the matter. One issue now before the U.S. Supreme Court in the Missouri abortion case involves using public funds to pay for counseling about abortions. If the high court applies the logic followed in the Boston case, women would retain the constitutional protection they now have.