Suit Filed to Appeal Limits on Abortions

Opening a new round in the legal battle over abortion, a coalition of civil rights and women’s groups Tuesday asked a state Court of Appeal to strike down the Legislature’s latest restrictions on state-funded abortions for low-income women.

The action represents the first test of abortion rights in California since the U.S. Supreme Court last week gave states more power to limit abortion without violating federal constitutional standards.

The legislative restrictions, included in the 1989-90 budget signed last week by Gov. George Deukmejian, would bar state funding for about 90% of the 80,000 abortions now being performed annually under the Medi-Cal program at a cost of about $25 million.

Under the limitations, state-funded abortions would be permitted only if the mother’s life is in danger, the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest, the unborn child was severely deformed or when unmarried minors have notified their parents.

Right to Privacy Issue

Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups contended in a suit filed with the appeals court that the restrictions violate the right to privacy and other provisions of the California Constitution.

Similar abortion-funding limits have been overturned by state courts for the last 11 years and have never taken effect. But anti-abortion forces have expressed hope that their cause has been given new momentum by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, which, while not changing California law, did ease the way for states to curb abortion.

On Tuesday, an attorney for the state Department of Health Services, one of the defendants in the suit, said the state plans to cite the federal high court ruling in its defense of the Legislature’s restrictions on funding.

“This is a 12-year-old lawsuit and the issues aren’t that different,” said William D. Lockett, assistant chief counsel for the department. “The only thing that is different is the U.S. Supreme Court ruling. And we’ll try to use that to our advantage.”

A liberal-dominated state Supreme Court held in 1981 that limits on Medi-Cal abortions violated the state constitutional right to privacy. But in 1987, the court underwent a dramatic philosophical realignment that put conservatives in the majority, leading to speculation that it might take a new look at the issue.

Since then, however, the justices have twice sidestepped the question, refusing to review appeal court rulings invalidating abortion-funding restrictions. Nor has the new high court had an opportunity in any case to set forth its views on the scope of the state right to privacy.

At a news conference, lawyers for the groups challenging the new restrictions on abortion rejected the suggestion that last week’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling could provide new incentive for the state high court to tackle the issue. Such an opportunity could come within months in the form of an appeal from whatever decision is issued by the appellate court in the abortion-funding case.

“All we can say is we hope and expect this court to be principled and obey its own precedents,” said Margaret C. Crosby, staff counsel for the ACLU of Northern California. “I have no reason to fear the state Supreme Court.”

The suit asked the appeals court by Friday to issue a temporary stay of the new budget restrictions and bar state officials from notifying Medi-Cal recipients of those limitations. Then, after briefs are filed, the court should permanently block enforcement of the restrictions as it has in the past, the suit contended.

The restrictions, the suit said, “would immediately result in a profound, disastrous effect on the lives of the poor.” Only about 10% of the low-income women seeking state-funded abortion would be able to meet the new requirements, it said.

The suit argued that the restrictions collide directly with the state Supreme Court’s 1981 ruling, violating the state provision to rights to privacy and equal protection of the law.

Further, it said, the limitations conflict with another state constitutional provision requiring that bills passed by the Legislature be limited to a “single subject.” The legislators improperly used the Budget Act, which involves appropriations, to make substantive changes in separate laws authorizing abortions in the Medi-Cal program, the suit said.

In the last two years, the state Court of Appeal has agreed with such a contention, striking down abortion-funding limits as violating both the state right to privacy and the legislative single-subject rule.