What a Pregnant Woman Needs : Complete medical advice and nothing but

It is cruelly ironic that as the federal government mobilizes to promote truth in food labeling and advertising, in the name of the public’s heath and welfare (see lead editorial), it is also poised to impose a gag order on information about abortion--an order deceitfully justified as supporting the same goal.

Since 1977, the 4,000 federally funded family planning clinics that serve more than 4 million low-income women a year have been prohibited from performing abortions. Now if Reagan Administration regulations issued in 1988 take effect in the next few months, all mention of abortion would be prohibited--even when patients specifically ask for information or referrals to a physician who might perform one. These inhumane regulations were suspended while legal challenges proceeded. But last month’s U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding their constitutionality clears the way for implementation.

The court’s decision was so outrageous that it has galvanized even the Senate, which has so often lost its way on major domestic issues, to act with uncharacteristic resolve. Thursday the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee decisively approved legislation, sponsored by Sen. John H. Chafee (R-R.I.), that would reverse the 1988 regulations and permit clinics to discuss abortion at a patient’s request. The bill is expected to clear both houses of Congress soon but not by the margin needed to overturn a probable veto by President Bush.

Opinion polls in recent years have consistently shown broad-based public support for a woman’s right to choose an abortion. The solid bipartisan backing for Chafee’s bill is further evidence of that national consensus, a consensus increasingly at odds with the mean and narrow dogma expressed by last month’s five-man Supreme Court majority.

That consensus should also send a message to the President. To a pregnant woman, complete medical information is even more important than total disclosure of the fat content of her salad dressing.