
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, December 26, 1993                   TAG: 9312260063
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

ABORTION CONFLICT AWAITED

A decision by the Clinton administration to require states to pay for abortions for a small number of poor women is shaping up as a significant symbol, one that abortion opponents say they will use in the coming fight over the administration's health-care plan.

Bruce Vladeck, the federal official in charge of Medicaid, the health-insurance program for the poor, said Friday that the administration would issue regulations requiring states to pay for abortions for low-income women made pregnant by rape or incest, as well as when the life of the pregnant woman was threatened.

The directive, Vladeck said, would be issued by the end of the year.

About 1,000 abortions might result from such public financing; millions are performed each year without public money. But the issue has great symbolic importance both to supporters and opponents of abortion rights because of the question of whether abortions will be covered when Congress begins to overhaul the health-care system next year.

Advocates of abortion rights maintain that the directive merely follows through on a recent change in the law, which relaxed the ban on federal financing of abortions to allow the government to pay for abortions in the case of rape or incest. But abortion foes argue that the directive indicates the administration's intention to carry out its leanings in favor of abortion rights.

"I think the administration has been consistent in wanting to eliminate all barriers to abortion," said Douglas Johnson, legislative director of National Right to Life, one of the largest anti-abortion groups. "This regulation is an example. The next attempt will be in the president's health plan, which would require every American in every state to pay for abortion on demand."

A White House spokesman said there would be no comment Saturday.

Dr. Pamela Maraldo, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, calling the decision "the act of a compassionate president committed to health-care reform," said "The order represents a step toward eliminating the separate and unequal treatment of lower-income women in our health-care system."

by CNB