Planned Parenthood to Defy Ruling on Abortion

Planned Parenthood officials said Thursday that they will defy a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that forbids doctors in federally funded family-planning clinics from advising poor, pregnant women that abortion is an option for them.

“We will stand firm by our commitment to give women full information,” said Margaret Connell, public affairs director for Planned Parenthood of Santa Barbara, Ventura and San Luis Obispo counties.

That regional office of Planned Parenthood receives about $201,000 in federal aid for reproductive health care, which is spent in the Santa Barbara and Santa Maria offices, Connell said. None of the federal money is spent on the organization’s Ventura County or San Luis Obispo County offices, which receive funding from other sources, she said.

While other abortion rights advocates criticized the 5-4 Supreme Court ruling, anti-abortion forces hailed it as a step toward making abortion illegal.

“I believe, and hopefully it’s true, that the Supreme Court’s decision is reflective of the people’s opinion in the land,” said the Rev. Kenneth Craft, senior pastor for the Sunrise Christian Fellowship church in Simi Valley.

“Just because it’s a law doesn’t mean it’s right,” Craft said of the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision by the Supreme Court that upheld a woman’s right to an abortion. “I don’t believe anything that is funded by my taxpaying dollars or anybody’s taxpaying dollars should be used to kill a child.”

Craft criticized Planned Parenthood offices in Orange County and the tri-county area for saying they would continue advising women about abortion despite the Supreme Court ruling.

“If they’re in violation of the law, they need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent,” he said. “What they need to do is talk about alternatives. Let’s encourage life, instead of abortion.”

Members of the Ventura County League of Women Voters are “outraged . . . at the decision by the Supreme Court,” said the group’s president, Roma Armbrust.

“We have a strong commitment to the concept that reproductive choice is an individual one,” she said.

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