Cox Won’t Support Bill to Reverse Ruling OKing Abortion Advice Ban : Politics: Newport GOP congressman supports family planning ‘aggressively’ but opposes taxpayer support for those terminating pregnancies.

One day after the U.S. Supreme Court barred family planning clinics from providing abortion counseling if they receive federal funds, Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) said Friday that he will not support a House bill to reverse that landmark decision.

“I am opposed to the taxpayer funding of abortion and abortion services, but I am aggressively in favor of family planning services,” Cox said. “A family planning clinic deals with the preventive family planning at the pre-pregnancy stage (but) does not contemplate any services of any kind for pregnant women.”

He said his view is consistent with that of Congress in 1970, the year it began paying for family planning through Title X of the Public Health Services Act.

Cox’s position is significant because in 1987 he was among 20 Reagan Administration officials who crafted the federal regulations that the Supreme Court upheld Thursday. At the time, he was White House senior associate counsel.

He noted, however, that when the Health and Human Services Administration regulations were finally promulgated in early 1988, he had resigned from the White House to begin his first campaign for Congress.

After President Reagan made a speech in 1987 objecting to the use of federal family planning money in abortion counseling, “my job was to make sure (that) what the President wanted got done,” Cox said Friday.

“Part of my legal advice,” he recalled, “was (that) if we did (certain things), the regulations wouldn’t fly.

“Many people in meetings wanted to cut off money to Planned Parenthood. I explained you cannot de-fund a group because they are participating in constitutionally protected activity--abortion activity.”

But on Thursday, national and local Planned Parenthood leaders said the high court decision might cost them federal money. They said they intend to continue to tell pregnant women about their right to seek an abortion, in apparent violation of the court-sustained Reagan-era family planning rules.

Cox’s views are important too, because leaders from Planned Parenthood/Orange and San Bernardino Counties said Thursday that Cox and Sen. John Seymour (D-Calif.) are Orange County’s only federal legislators who support family planning, as Planned Parenthood defines that term.

So the group hopes that the two might support legislation to overturn what Planned Parenthood leaders called the high court’s “gag rule” on abortion information.

Although he has sometimes been characterized as a supporter of abortion rights, Cox on Friday was equivocal on whether he believes a woman has a right to an abortion.

“However pro-choice one may be, abortion is deeply offensive to thousands of human beings,” he said. “It always involves the taking of life. It is a very agonizing and difficult and awful choice.”

Cox said he fears that a highly emotional debate over abortion could jeopardize federal money for family planning. Federal funds from Title X now “enjoy reasonably broad-based support,” he said. “But if Title X becomes the centerpiece for the entire abortion debate, then the entire program will be jeopardized.”

Despite the ruling, Cox said, he thinks that it is still possible for Planned Parenthood to receive federal money and provide abortion information.

Cautioning that he still needs to study details of the regulations and the court’s ruling, Cox suggested that perhaps Planned Parenthood could provide family planning services in one part of the agency’s office and “post-pregnancy” services such as abortion counseling in another.