Senate Backs Override on Abortion Issue : Counseling: ‘Gag rule’ at clinics that get U.S. funds is likely to survive a similar vote in the House.

In another pre-election showdown on a divisive issue, the Senate on Thursday easily overrode President Bush’s veto of a bill that would allow federally financed family planning clinics to continue abortion counseling.

The 73-26 vote, however, does not prevent federal officials from beginning to enforce the Administration “gag rule” at the estimated 2,000 clinics that receive U.S. funds. The new rules began Thursday, and the legislation nullifying them will have no effect unless the House also votes to override Bush’s veto.

Such action appears unlikely. The House is expected to vote today to uphold the veto, despite a determined last-ditch drive by the House Democratic leadership to override the President for the first time.

“I don’t think we have the votes” to overturn the veto, one key leadership aide said.

Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, said he anticipates that Bush will win by a margin of 10 to 12 votes, as he has in the past.

The controversial rule, first issued in 1988 but never in effect until Thursday because of court challenges and bureaucratic delays, forbids anyone in a federally aided clinic but doctors to discuss abortion as an option for women with unwanted pregnancies.

Although the regulation was modified to allow doctors to provide “complete medical information” to patients, it prevents them from referring women to abortion providers. About 90% of clinic workers are nurses, social workers or others without medical degrees.

Anticipating that the House will fail to overturn the veto, some opponents of the rule began pointing toward the presidential election and Democratic nominee Bill Clinton’s opposition to the regulation.

“The American people will have another override vote on Nov. 3,” said David Andrews, acting president of the Planned Parenthood Federation, which has 124 affiliates that receive family planning funds.

Bush vetoed the measure on grounds that the federal government should not promote abortion as a method of family planning by allowing the clinics receiving U.S. funds to recommend abortions. The Senate effort to override had the support of 53 Democrats and 20 Republicans.

Opponents of the regulation said the major victims would be the 5.4 million women, primarily poor blacks or Latinos, who rely on the clinics as their primary source of health care and birth control services.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who opposes the rule, said Planned Parenthood in Tennessee already has announced that it would close five of its clinics rather than comply with the plan and Rhode Island has said it would refuse federal funds under the new condition.

On another front, critics of the rule also were seeking a federal court order to stop the Administration from demanding compliance with the new regulation, on grounds that it was improperly approved and so vague that clinics found it difficult to comply. A ruling on this challenge is expected soon.

As the rule took effect Thursday, operators of family planning clinics that now receive a combined $150 million a year in federal funds took different approaches to the new regulation.

Some said they would refuse U.S. assistance and operate entirely with private funds, such as the Planned Parenthood facility in White Plains, N.Y., that now receives 15% of its budget from the federal government.

Others, such as the Washington Free Clinic in the nation’s capital, have decided to defy the regulation and continue to tell patients about abortion as an option if they are pregnant and do not want to give birth.

“It’s a very risky decision for us,” acknowledged Sheryl Lahti, executive director of the Free Clinic. “We risk losing our funding” for all family planning and prenatal care programs, she said.

Andrews said none of Planned Parenthood’s 124 affiliates that now receive federal money will agree to comply. He vowed that “our clinics will not be gagged, even if it costs us $35 million.” Andrews estimated that federal funds amounted to 10% of Planned Parenthood’s annual budget.