House Votes to Revise Abortion ‘Gag Rule’ : Congress: The margin is still short of a two-thirds majority needed to overturn Bush’s expected veto of the pregnancy counseling issue.

The House voted Thursday to overturn the so-called “gag rule” that forbids counselors in federally subsidized family planning clinics from referring pregnant patients to abortion doctors.

But the vote margin, 268 to 150, was well short of the two-thirds majority needed to overcome an expected veto by President Bush.

The long, emotional debate Thursday marked the third time in a year that House members have tangled over the abortion counseling issue. Each time, the result has been about the same.

While most members favor revising the law to ensure that poor, pregnant women get full advice on abortion, they do not command a veto-proof majority. Opponents said that taxpayers who oppose abortion should not have their money spent for “abortion advocacy.”

The federal government spends $150 million each year to subsidize about 4,000 family-planning clinics nationwide. These facilities provide contraception, medical testing and counseling for low-income women.

The House bill, sponsored by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), would require clinics to provide “information to individuals regarding pregnancy management options,” including “nondirective counseling and referrals regarding prenatal care, foster care, adoption and the termination of pregnancy.”

Amendments approved Thursday would limit such advice only to patients who request it. Moreover, counselors with “religious or moral” objections to abortion would not be obliged to discuss the matter.

The Senate earlier passed a bill to restore abortion counseling and referrals.

Before Thursday’s vote, however, the White House reiterated the President’s intention to veto the bill. It is “totally alien to the mission of the program” to send pregnant women to abortion doctors, the White House said.

Under the 1970 Federal Family Planning Act, clinics were prohibited from providing abortions. They were, however, permitted to counsel patients about abortion and refer them to abortion doctors.

In 1988, the Ronald Reagan Administration reinterpreted the law, proposing new regulations that forbade clinic employees from discussing abortion or making referrals to abortion doctors.

Last year, the Supreme Court upheld those regulations in the case of Rust vs. Sullivan, and the Department of Health and Human Services plans to put them into effect later this month.

In March, HHS officials revised the rules slightly to say that doctors may provide patients with “full medical information” but may not refer them to abortion facilities. They reiterated that other employees should not discuss abortion at all.

“Abortion is not family planning,” said Rep. Bill Emerson (R-Minn.), who supports the Administration’s approach. “Abortion is family cancellation. We should not be funneling federal money into abortion advocacy.”

He and other critics of the bill--which would revise the 1970 law--noted that Planned Parenthood is the largest provider of abortions and therefore had a “financial interest” in having pregnant patients referred for abortions.

But backers of the House measure said that health professionals should be free to provide poor pregnant women with complete medical advice.