Cut the Politics, Not the Funds

The saga of the state’s 500 family-planning clinics has run on and on like an endless soap opera. Every time it seemed that the clinics’ funding dispute was going to be resolved by Sacramento, new barriers would rise again. But this is no melodrama: The constant delays in funding the clinics are hurting real people, mostly poor and uninsured women.

Now the state Assembly, and then, notably, Gov. George Deukmejian have a chance to give those women a future that includes access to family-planning services and medical checkups for serious and sometimes deadly gynecological diseases.

The background: Gov. Deukmejian, unable to reach a budget compromise last summer with the Legislature, cut the state’s family-planning budget by $24 million. This is two-thirds of what the Legislature had allocated to pay for family-planning counseling and pregnancy testing, as well as crucial screening tests for cancer, AIDS and venereal diseases. The hundreds of thousands of women who used these clinics statewide were not only the poorest among us, but many of the 5.2 million among us who have no medical insurance.

The issue is muddled by a lawsuit. Last year family-planning advocates went to court to restore the funding, but the flurry of appeals leaves the matter still on hold. The governor says that he’s deeply worried that the court can force him to restore the funds. This could raise a constitutional question over the separation of powers.

But the whole fight could easily be resolved if the Assembly today votes, as the Senate did earlier this week, to restore $20 million of the funds previously cut. Then all the governor has to do is sign the new funding bill. If he signs the bill, the original reason for the lawsuit--to force the restoration of the funds--would be eliminated. Thus the groundwork would be laid for settling the lawsuit filed by family-planning advocates.

In previous attempts to settle the suit, family-planning advocates said they were willing to calm the governor’s worries about preservation of his executive powers and drop the suit--if he agreed to restore family-planning funds. And a legislative stumbling block--an insistence by some conservatives that counseling exclude mention of abortion--appears to have been resolved. Republican and Democratic leaders agree that under the informed consent law, abortion must be one of the options discussed in pregnancy counseling, although planning funds would not pay for abortions.

If the Assembly approves the $20 million, as legislative leaders believe it will, then it’s up to the governor. He doesn’t need the lawsuit, and poor women need the help.