Senate Votes to Restore $20 Million : Birth control: The bill would authorize funds that the governor cut last year from the state’s family planning program. The governor continues to show signs of opposition.

The state Senate, despite continuing signs of opposition from Gov. George Deukmejian, voted Tuesday to restore $20 million that Deukmejian cut last year from the state’s birth control program for the poor.

The Senate’s bipartisan passage of the Democrat-authored measure was delayed by an unusual meeting between Deukmejian and several Republican supporters of the bill, who emerged from the 30-minute session without a commitment that the governor would sign the legislation.

Sen. Rebecca Morgan (R-Los Altos Hills), who was among those to meet with Deukmejian, said his position was “about the same” as it was on Friday, when he told reporters he thought the family planning program had grown far beyond its original purpose.

Deukmejian’s latest criticism of the program came just days after his chief budget adviser indicated that the governor would look kindly on a bill to restore the family planning funds if the measure represented a bipartisan “consensus” of the Legislature.

That signal helped prompt about half a dozen lawmakers from both parties to spend a week meeting late into the night crafting a measure that could win support from Republicans and Democrats. The negotiators’ primary mission was to draft language that would clearly prevent state family planning funds from being used to perform, promote or advocate abortion.

The Senate was presented with the product of those talks Tuesday. The bill was approved on a 30-5 vote, with five conservative Republicans voting against it. The measure, by Assemblyman Bruce Bronzan (D-Fresno), was sent immediately to the Assembly, which is expected to act on it Thursday.

The bill would restore $20 million of the $24 million that Deukmejian cut from the Office of Family Planning and place into law several restrictions on how the money could be used. Most of the limits are already in contracts between the state and the private, nonprofit clinics, such as Planned Parenthood, which dispense the services.

Morgan, who sponsored the bill on the Senate floor, seemed almost to be needling the law-and-order-oriented governor by comparing the family planning program to one of Deukmejian’s proudest accomplishments, the state’s prison-building program.

“We must remember that it is not possible to remove a problem from the state just by removing money from the budget,” Morgan said. “If this were true, we could stop building prisons. Just by removing money for prisons from the budget, we could reduce crime.

“We need those prisons because people haven’t stopped committing crimes,” she added. “We need family planning because people . . . are still getting syphilis and herpes and cancer. People need counseling and they need contraceptive devices.”

But Republican John Doolittle of Rocklin said the family planning program should do no more than provide information to people about how to avoid pregnancy. Doolittle said two-thirds of the program’s budget had been going to providing services rather than educational materials.

“This policy, unreformed, continues to promote the promiscuous behavior of teen-agers who go behind their parents’ backs, encouraged by the government, to receive birth control devices and instruction in this area,” Doolittle said.

Doolittle’s comments were similar to what Deukmejian said on Friday, when he chided the program for providing “far more” in medical services than the Legislature originally envisioned. Deukmejian said poor women should obtain those services, which include screening for cancer and sexually transmitted diseases, from the Medi-Cal program.

“I think that once people are given the information as to what type of birth control that they can use, then that’s it,” Deukmejian said. “I don’t think that they should be continually going back to family planning clinics to receive that kind of additional birth control--either devices or prescriptions.”

Bronzan said he thought Deukmejian’s comments were “off the cuff” and did not reflect a “slamming of the door” on the issue.

Here is the roll call by which the Senate voted, 30-5, to restore family planning funds vetoed from the state budget:

Democrats for (21): Alquist, San Jose; Ayala, Chino; Boatwright, Concord; Deddeh, Bonita; Dills, Gardena; C. Green, Norwalk; L. Greene, Carmichael; Hart, Santa Barbara; Keene, Benicia; Killea, San Diego; Lockyer, Hayward; Marks, San Francisco; McCorquodale, San Jose; Mello, Watsonville; Petris, Oakland; Presley, Riverside; Roberti, Los Angeles; Rosenthal, Los Angeles; Torres, Los Angeles; Vuich, Dinuba; Watson, Los Angeles.

Republicans for (8): Bergeson, Newport Beach; Beverly, Manhattan Beach; Craven, Oceanside; Davis, Valencia; Maddy, Fresno; Morgan, Los Altos Hills; Nielsen, Rohnert Park; Seymour, Anaheim.

Independent for (1): Kopp, San Francisco.

Republicans against (5): Doolittle, Rocklin; Leonard, Big Bear; Rogers, Bakersfield; Royce, Anaheim; Russell, Glendale.

Democrats against: None.

Absent or not voting (4): Garamendi (D-Walnut Grove); Bill Greene (D-Los Angeles); Montoya (D-Whittier); Robbins (D-Tarzana). Vacancy, 1.

Times staff writer Carl Ingram also contributed to this story.