Appeals Panel Voids Muzzle on Abortions : Public Funds: 1st Circuit Court says regulations on counseling and referral services are unconstitutional.

Department of Health and Human Services regulations barring the use of public funds for abortion counseling or referral services are unconstitutional, a federal appeals court ruled in an opinion made public today.

The 3-1 ruling by the U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals is binding only in that jurisdiction embracing Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Puerto Rico. Other circuits can be expected to be influenced by it, however.

The Supreme Court is virtually certain to review the issue next term.

The regulations, which involve family planning funds in the so-called Title X program, were announced in 1988 by the Ronald Reagan Administration but were promptly enjoined by a U.S. district court in Boston.

The regulations govern the use of $140 million by 4,000 organizations around the country.

The restrictions forbid any counseling about abortion by recipients of family planning money and require such recipients to direct pregnant women only to facilities that care for the “health of the unborn child.”

Opponents of the regulations contend they skew the information provided to thousands of women, most of whom have low incomes and many of whom are teen-agers dependent on federally financed family planning centers for counseling and advice concerning contraception, family planning and abortion.

Government attorneys argued unsuccessfully that the government was entitled to discourage abortion referrals.

The ruling by the appeals court panel said the regulations violate the right of female patients to make decisions about abortion and childbirth free of governmental interference and also violate the free speech rights of clinics and doctors to provide, and of female patients to receive, this critical information.

“The effect of the regulations is to infringe upon women’s freedom of reproductive choice by denying them access to important information and by interfering with the physician-patient relationship,” Judge Hugh Bownes wrote for the majority.

In another abortion case, a representative of the American Civil Liberties Union today deliberately violated provisions of Guam’s new anti-abortion law that has been described as the most restrictive in the United States and its territories.

The law prohibits abortions except when the woman’s life is in jeopardy.

Janet Benshoof, an ACLU lawyer, violated the law by telling women in a speech at Agana, Guam, where to go to have an abortion. The territory’s attorney general, who personally opposes the measure, pressed charges.