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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 26, 1995                   TAG: 9507260031
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

FAMILY PLANNING

WHY ARE some congressional Republicans trying to dismantle the federal family-planning program that was established 25 years ago by President Nixon? That until now has received broad bipartisan support? That helps prevent as many as 1 million unwanted pregnancies and as many as 500,000 abortions annually?

The key to the mystery: Political sense doesn't necessarily make logical sense.

The House Appropriations Committee last week voted, mostly along party lines (though with seven Republican defections), to end the program. The $193 million previously allotted for next year instead would be folded over into block grants to the states - which would be under no obligation to continue using the funds for family-planning and related health services for the working poor, women without health insurance but with too much income to qualify for Medicaid.

"Today," said Appropriations Chairman Bob Livingston, the Louisiana Republican who introduced the amendment, "is payback time." The "payback" is to the Christian Coalition, for its help in electing a GOP Congress. And the coalition detests the fact that some of the money goes to local Planned Parenthood clinics, some of which perform abortions and all of which offer abortion counseling.

Never mind that those affiliates, generally in inner cities or in underserved rural areas, get only 15 percent of the money - for specific, contracted services such as Pap smears, pelvic exams and screenings for sexually transmitted diseases. Never mind that 53 percent of the money nationally, and 100 percent of it in Virginia, goes to public health departments. Never mind that the money by law cannot be used for abortions.

Scoring political points is apparently more important in some quarters than reducing teen pregnancies and deterring abortions. Let's hope the full House, and if not the House then the Senate, and if not the Senate then a presidential veto, will restraighten family-planning priorities.

by CNB