House Abortion Foes Cancel Fight on Counseling Bill

Faced with growing defections and fears of possible voter backlash, House anti-abortion forces on Tuesday gave up plans to fight a spending bill that would allow federally funded clinics to continue abortion counseling.

Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.) and other members of his House Pro-Life Caucus had planned to try to kill or dilute an amendment to the 1992 labor, health and human services appropriations bill, due on the House floor today, that would permit 15,000 clinics to continue offering the counseling service.

But in the face of certain defeat, Smith said he and his allies would rely instead on President Bush to keep a pledge, made in a June 4 letter to congressional leaders and reaffirmed Tuesday by the White House, to veto the legislation.

A ban on abortion counseling, first proposed by the Ronald Reagan Administration in 1988, was challenged in court by abortion rights activists and never implemented. The Supreme Court last month upheld the ban, triggering the drive in Congress to nullify the regulation with the amendment withholding funds to enforce it.

Planned Parenthood and the medical Establishment have lobbied against the abortion counseling ban, arguing that it would abridge free speech and deny poor women access to information.

The regulation is “discrimination against women, especially poor women,” said Faye Wattleton, president of Planned Parenthood.

Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee, said Tuesday that many House members have been “misinformed in important respects on how the regulation works.”