Court Lifts $24-Million Clinic Stay : Family planning: Deukmejian immediately takes steps to block issuance of state funds to facilities serving poor women.

An appeal court on Wednesday lifted a stay on $24 million in state funds for family planning clinics, but Gov. George Deukmejian immediately took steps to block issuance of the money.

In the ongoing legal struggle that pits the governor’s right to make line-item budget cuts against the rights of the poor to family planning services, Deukmejian instructed the state attorney general’s office to seek a state Supreme Court order blocking the funds.

If the governor fails to obtain the Supreme Court order, the state Department of Health Services will be scrambling to comply with Wednesday’s order by the 2nd District Court of Appeal in Ventura.

“We’re going to comply with the court order,” said Scott Lewis, health department spokesman, “but it’s a question of coming up with the money.”

The complicated legal struggle began last July when Deukmejian, using line-item vetoes, slashed $24 million of the $36 million budgeted by the Legislature for family planning clinics.

On Dec. 8, a San Luis Obispo County Superior Court judge, ruling on a suit filed by California Rural Legal Assistance and the National Health Law Program, ordered the cuts restored within 10 days.

Judge William Fredman ruled that Deukmejian’s action in cutting the family planning budget by two-thirds violated state welfare law by depriving health care to thousands of poor women.

But the state appealed the ruling to the 2nd District Court of Appeal and asked for an emergency stay on releasing the funds. The stay was granted Dec. 27 and on Wednesday, the court vacated it.

If the state Supreme Court blocks the funds, the money could be tied up until the appeal over the governor’s right to cut the funds is decided by the court of appeal. That could take as long as a year and that decision could then be appealed to the state Supreme Court.

“As far as a monetary question, it could be moot,” said G. R. Overton, deputy attorney general handling the case. “But there are lingering constitutional questions. . . . This situation could arise again.”

When the 2nd District Court of Appeal vacated its stay on issuing the funds, attorneys representing poor women and health care providers were jubilant.

“This is a great New Year’s present to the many clinics that are on the verge of closing their doors and to the tens of thousands of women that have lost all access to basic health care,” said Joel Diringer of the CRLA in a written statement.

But Thomas C. Kring, director of the Los Angeles Regional Family Planning Council, was not so optimistic.

“I would be amazed to see anything in the next week or two from the state, saying here is the money,” Kring said.

Kring said that the number of patients at clinics in Los Angeles County who receive contraceptives and such services as gynecological screening for cancer and for AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases has already fallen off by 30%.

Kring said he believes that it is up to the Legislature to restore the funds cut by Deukmejian.

A bill by Assemblyman Bruce Bronzan (D-Fresno) to restore the cuts is pending in the Legislature, but its fate depends on negotiations between the measure’s supporters and critics of family planning clinics.

Deukemejian has indicated that he would support such a measure if a compromise can be reached between the opposing camps, according to Tom Beermann, deputy press secretary in the governor’s office.