Cloud Cast on Valley Aid for Family Planning

Family planning services for about 16,000 low-income women in the San Fernando Valley have been jeopardized by Gov. George Deukmejian’s refusal to delete anti-abortion language inserted into the state budget by a clerical error.

The governor’s action casts into limbo $32 million in state family-planning money that was earmarked for 234 public and private agencies providing family planning services throughout the state.

At stake in the San Fernando Valley is at least $800,000 that was to have been distributed among nine Los Angeles county clinics and four private agencies that provide subsidized family planning services to women who are too poor to have private insurance but not impoverished enough to qualify for Medi-Cal. These Valley clinics had expected to use the money to serve about 16,000 women during the next 12 months.

The controversial sentence left in the budget as a result of a clerical error states: “No funds appropriated for the Office of Family Planning shall be granted, directly or indirectly, to any group, clinic or organization which performs, promotes or advertises abortions, or which receives any direct or indirect compensation, advantage, benefit or gain from referrals for abortion services.”

Family planning groups have interpreted this section to mean counselors cannot suggest abortion as an option to women who receive pregnancy testing at their clinics. Yet, according to state and federal laws tied into family planning funding, a pregnant woman must be advised of all options, including abortion.

“It’s such a global statement, it would undoubtedly affect the funding for any agency that provides abortion referrals even if the agency doesn’t provide abortions,” said Dr. Dorothy McVann, associate deputy director of the county’s public health program. The county provides abortion referrals and abortions, although no abortions are performed in the Valley.

Valley health providers predict that a disintegration of subsidized family planning services would trigger an increase in unwanted pregnancies, unchecked venereal disease and abortions.

“Many of them would not be able to afford private medical service care,” said Kimberly Kent, an administrator with Northeast Valley Health Corp., which has clinics in San Fernando and Pacoima. “They would probably become pregnant, sexually transmitted disease would not be detected as quickly and the public health would decline.”

The Valley family planning programs affected by the governor’s actions are operated by Planned Parenthood in Canoga Park and Sherman Oaks, Northeast Valley Health Corp., Valley Community Clinic, Granada Hills Community Hospital and nine Los Angeles County clinics.

At least one of the providers, the nonprofit Valley Community Clinic in North Hollywood, would probably shut down altogether if its state funds were withheld, assistant director Diane Chamberlain said. Half of the money received by the clinic, which also operates a drug diversion program, optometrist services and counseling, comes from the state Office of Family Planning.

All of the Valley clinics are still seeing patients, even though the funding is no longer a certainty. After the governor signed the 1985-86 budget on Friday, the state Department of Health Services notified the 234 agencies by telegram that there was no guarantee they would get any state money this year. The new funding cycle began July 1.

Administrators at the Valley clinics say they are maintaining the status quo while they wait for the courts to decide whether the governor’s action was legal. Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California and the Los Angeles Regional Family Planning Council on Wednesday filed a lawsuit in the 1st District Court of Appeals in San Francisco in an effort to strike the budget language. Opponents say one of the reasons the wording is unconstitutional is that it would force agencies to violate other state and federal laws.

“The law is telling us one thing on the one hand; the budget is telling us something else on the other,” said David Alois, acting executive director of Planned Parenthood Affiliates. Alois said lawyers with Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union are “very confident” that the court will strike the offensive provision.

In explaining why he left the restrictive language intact, Deukmejian wrote in his budget message, “The question for me has to be, do I think the language represents the right thing to do? I do.”

Decision ‘Keeps Faith’

The governor further observed that his decision “keeps faith with my own convictions about abortion and those of a majority of California’s legislators.”

The largest provider of subsidized family planning services in the Valley is Planned Parenthood, which maintains two of its larger clinics in Los Angeles here. In Sherman Oaks, 57% of the 12,060 patient visits projected for the coming year will be generated by women who qualify for state subsidies. In Canoga Park, 63% of 12,730 visits expected will come from eligible women.

Even if the funds are cut permanently, Planned Parenthood would find a way to continue serving low-income women, said Marie S. Carlos, Planned Parenthood’s director of government funding in Los Angeles.

Most women seem to be unaware of the budgetary snafu, health providers say. However, Carlos of Planned Parenthood said the phones were ringing off the hook as staffers fielded questions from women anxious to know if they could still come in for their appointments.