Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 22, 1995 TAG: 9507240018
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The House Appropriations Committee voted Thursday to end Title X family planning funding and redistribute the money to states in the form of block grants for maternal and child health programs, and migrant and community health centers. The measure has yet to go for a full House vote and has not yet been considered in the Senate.
Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Roanoke, said Friday that the measure would allow states to use the block grants for family planning purposes if they chose to.
But David Nova, director of public affairs for Planned Parenthood of the Blue Ridge, said there is no requirement that states use the money for those purposes. Block-granting Title X money with no requirement that it be used for family planning ``eliminates the only clearly defined women's health program in the country,'' Nova said.
``I don't think any member of Congress is under the illusion that this doesn't dramatically change how those monies are being spent,'' he said.
The Title X program was set up 25 years ago to assure that poor women had access to family planning counseling and related medical services, such as pelvic exams.
Last month, Planned Parenthood joined similar groups throughout the country in circulating petitions, initiating letter-writing campaigns and carrying out other lobbying in favor of Title X. Since then, the Roanoke-based affiliate has become a kind of clearinghouse for other Planned Parenthood affiliates across the country that are waging campaigns in support of Title X, Nova said.
No Title X funds come to any Planned Parenthood affiliates in Virginia, but they do fund family planning services at state health departments, including those in the Roanoke and Alleghany health districts. More than $150,000 in Title X funds support family planning programs annually in those two health districts.
About 60 percent of the women who receive contraceptives and other family planning health services in the Alleghany Health District get them through Title X. The percentage is lower in the Roanoke Health District but still is substantial.
Title X funds, which this year total $193.5 million nationally, pay for birth control products but do not pay for abortions. The money pays for low-income women to get a physical exam; a Pap smear; education about conception; and contraceptive methods such as the Norplant implant, Depo-Provera shots, birth control pills, condoms, foam and diaphragms.
It also pays for counseling about abstinence as a form of birth control.
The program averts more than 1.2 million unintended pregnancies a year, Nova said.
Planned Parenthood officials met with Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, last month and are expected to meet with Goodlatte on Monday. But they intend to focus their efforts now on Virginia's senators - Charles Robb and John Warner, Nova said.
``I don't think there's even a possibility of stopping this in the House,'' he said. ``We need to address this issue again in the Senate.''
by CNB