House OKs Foreign Aid for Groups Backing Abortion : Legislation: The bill would reverse an Administration policy against funding such family planning units. A veto is threatened.

Abortion rights advocates won a victory in the House Wednesday when the chamber voted to reverse Bush Administration policy denying foreign aid funds to private family planning groups that advocate abortion.

The so-called “Mexico City policy,” first promulgated in 1984 by then-President Ronald Reagan and supported by the House in votes twice before, was rejected Wednesday on a 222-200 roll call, despite a White House warning that the legislation would be vetoed if the policy reversal were included.

In a related vote on the same foreign aid authorization bill, the House decided, 234 to 188, to earmark $20 million for the United Nations’ family planning agency that has been denied U.S. contributions for the last five years because of charges that it approved coerced abortion and involuntary sterilization in China. President Bush said that adoption of this provision also would trigger his veto of the legislation.

The votes are regarded as a good sign by lawmakers who want to overturn a recent Supreme Court ruling upholding a Bush Administration ban on funds for family planning clinics in the United States that advise pregnant women of the abortion option.

House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) said Wednesday that the House will vote this month on whether to reverse the high court’s ruling when it considers an appropriations bill for the Department of Health and Human Services. An early vote is expected in the Senate also.

Bush has threatened to veto any legislation that would override the controversial regulation, and Congress now appears to lack the two-thirds majority needed to override him on the issue.

Even so, the symbolism of overturning the Mexico City doctrine was a tonic for those who for years have opposed the Reagan and Bush administrations unsuccessfully on the issue.

The last time the House voted on the issue two years ago, an attempt to reverse the Mexico City rules failed, 229 to 163.

“The momentum is clearly on our side--it’s a sea change,” said Rep. Les AuCoin (D-Ore.), a leader of the abortion rights forces in the House.

Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), a champion for groups opposed to abortion, said that he expects to be in the minority on a series of abortion-related votes this year. “I’m not optimistic--given these two votes,” Hyde told reporters. “Right now, we are not riding the crest.”

But Hyde said that the foreign aid authorization bill is “going nowhere.” Congress has failed to pass similar bills for the last five years, and no foreign aid authorization bill has been signed into law since 1985. If necessary, Hyde said, the House will sustain a veto of the bill.

The foreign aid measure would authorize $300 million in the fiscal year starting Oct. 1 and an additional $350 million in the following year for family planning services. And, although it would reverse the Mexico City policy, it would prohibit the use of U.S. funds for abortions.

Rep. Jan Meyers (R-Kan.) said that the Mexico City policy has crippled U.S. family planning activities in the developing world and has caused a shut-off in assistance to some nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

The International Planned Parenthood Federation, she said, has canceled programs in a dozen countries because of the U.S. restrictions on aid to private groups.

Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.) said that the United States is the leading sponsor of family planning activities in the world and that this will not change whether the Mexico City regulation remains in effect or not.

However, Rep. Chester G. Atkins (D-Mass.) termed the policy a “crazy international gag rule” that bars funds to private groups for making abortion referrals while placing no such restrictions on foreign governments that receive U.S. aid.

A similar clash occurred over the issue of allocating $20 million for the United Nations Fund for Population Activities, the world’s largest multilateral family planning provider, which operates in more than 140 nations.

In arguing for a reversal of policy and providing U.S. funds to the U.N. agency, Rep. Peter H. Kostmayer (D-Pa.) said that the legislation would not add to funds for China and would not allow the use of U.S. funds to pay for abortions.

“This is not a question of abortion,” Atkins said. “It is a question of assuring that all women have access to compassionate, voluntary family planning services.”