Reagan Moves to Redirect Family-Planning Policy

President Reagan has been criticized in some quarters of the prolife movement for not making antiabortion measures a higher priority. But recent presidential actions could put a stop to such complaints.

In a White House meeting with 150 prolife leaders, Reagan pledged renewed support for a “human life amendment” to the U.S. Constitution. And he urged support for the President’s Prolife Bill, which among other things would permanently restrict the use of federal funds for abortions (CT, June 12, 1987, p. 48).

He also expressed opposition to the Civil Rights Restoration Act. He called the bill a “proabortion federal intrusion” that would force all hospitals and colleges that receive federal funds—including religiously affiliated institutions—to provide abortion services.

Policy Changes

Most welcomed by the prolife leaders was Reagan’s announcement that he was removing abortion from Title X of the Public Health Act, the federal government’s family-planning program. He said he had directed Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Otis Bowen to issue several new regulations, including:

• A restriction on the use of federal funds for any program that “encourages, promotes, or advocates abortion, or which assists a woman in obtaining an abortion.”
• Rules stating that programs that “provide counseling and referral for abortion services as a method of family planning will not be eligible for the Title X funds.”
• Requirements that federally funded groups keep separate both physically and financially any abortion-related services from their family-planning services.
• A directive that the U.S. Surgeon General issue a “comprehensive medical report on the health effects, physical and emotional, of abortion on women.”

Mixed Reaction

Faye Wattleton, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, told a Washington news conference she looks on Reagan’s initiatives as an “outrageous assault on the women of this country.” She said Planned Parenthood—which receives about $30 million annually from Title X—would file a lawsuit to block the changes.

But leaders in the prolife movement praised Reagan’s moves. “I think these are all significant steps,” said Curtis Young, executive director of the Christian Action Council. “The President decided he was going to directly and personally intervene to shore up the [family-planning] groups … and to let people know he’s very much in control.”

However, Young and other prolife leaders said the key will be how HHS Secretary Bowen follows through on Reagan’s directive. Prolifers criticized Bowen when he fired HHS Deputy Assistant Secretary Jo Ann Gasper after she refused to renew grants to two Planned Parenthood organizations.

In January, Gasper had issued a memo banning federal funds to proabortion family-planning groups. The memo was later rescinded by higher HHS officials, and Bowen insisted Gasper was guilty of insubordination. But Gasper said she was fired because she “refused to fund abortionists.”

Meanwhile, with Reagan’s new directives scheduled to take effect early this fall, U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) is moving the family-planning battle to the Congress. On the same day Reagan announced his new Title X regulations, Kennedy began hearings on a bill to reauthorize the program for four years at increased levels of funding.

Kennedy’s bill would for the first time provide money for research on contraceptives and for “community-based education and information programs on parenthood and pregnancy.” Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee, called the bill “a covert attempt to use tax dollars to speed the marketing” of a new abortion pill. Further, he said, the measure would “put the federal government in the business of funding school-based clinics” that distribute contraceptives and make abortion referrals.

By Kim A. Lawton

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