Defend Reproductive rights!
1991Joni Jacobs 1991-06Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 1 →
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On May 24, women's right to abortion— and free speech rights of all Americans-suffered a devastating blow. In a 5-4 decision, the United States Supreme Court upheld federal regulations prohibiting healthcare workers at federally funded, low-cost family-planning clinics from counseling women on the option of abortion.
Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who wrote the majority decision, said it is not a violation of the Constitution for the government to selectively fund programs based on what it believes to be in the public interest.
"In so doing, the government has not discriminated on the basis of viewpoint; it has merely chosen to fund one activity to the exclusion of the other," Rehnquist wrote. He added that the regulations do not infringe on either the free-speech rights of healthcare workers or the still-legal right of women to "Government manipulation"
But in a dissenting opinion, Justice Harry A. Blackman called the decision a "deliberate manipulation by the government of the dialogue between a woman and her physician."
"In its haste further to restrict the right of every woman to control her reproductive freedom and bodily integrity, the majority disregards established principles of law and contorts this court's decided cases to arrive at this preordained result," Blackman wrote.
The controversy stems from the 1970 Title X Public Health Services Act, Section 1008 of which states, "None of the funds appropriated under this title shall be used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning." In 1988, the Reagan administration interpreted the law to include counseling and advice on abortion.
According to the revised regulations, healthcare workers in federally funded familyplanning projects must tell women who ask about abortion that "the project does not consider abortion an appropriate method of family planning and therefore does not counsel or refer for abortion."
The ruling affects 4000 clinics nationwide, which serve the medical needs for 4.5 million women. Most clinics are in areas with (continued on page 5)