State Court Approves Medi-Cal Abortions

Unmoved by a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on abortion, the state Supreme Court today continued full funding of Medi-Cal abortions for poor women in California, striking down legislative restrictions for the 12th straight year.

Only Chief Justice Malcolm Lucas and Justice Edward Panelli voted to grant a hearing on an appeal by Gov. George Deukmejian’s Administration from a lower-court ruling declaring the restrictions unconstitutional. Four votes are needed for a hearing by the seven-member court.

Anti-abortion groups had hoped for a breakthrough after the July 3 decision by the nation’s high court that broadened states’ authority to restrict the spending of public funds on abortion without violating the U.S. Constitution.

That ruling, however, did not affect the California Constitution, whose explicit guarantee of privacy has been the basis of the state court decisions. California courts have ruled that the state’s protection is broader than privacy rights recognized under the U.S. Constitution.

The decision is one of a series of legal and political victories for abortion-rights forces in the last few months. They include rulings by the Florida Supreme Court and a California appeals court blocking enforcement of state laws requiring parental consent for unmarried minors’ abortions, in each case citing a state constitutional right of privacy.

Today’s decision involved the 1989-90 budget, which like previous budgets would have allowed state funding for about 10% of the 80,000 Medi-Cal abortions performed each year, according to abortion-rights groups.

Funding would have been provided only if childbirth threatened the woman’s life, if the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest, if the pregnant woman was under 18 and had notified her parents or if the fetus was severely deformed.

Similar restrictions enacted for the last 12 years have never taken effect because of state court rulings. The key ruling was a 1981 state Supreme Court decision that the Medi-Cal program must offer poor women the option of abortion as long as it also pays for childbirth. Otherwise, the court said, the state would require women to give up a constitutional right as the price of state benefits.

The court has refused to reconsider the ruling in each succeeding year, even after a liberal majority was voted out of office in 1986 and replaced by a majority of Deukmejian appointees. This is the third straight year that only Lucas and Panelli, both Deukmejian appointees, have voted to review the case.