file: /pub/resources/text/ProLife.News/1991: pln-0109.txt --------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Life Communications - Volume 1, No. 9 August, 1991 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- (1) TITLE X DUPLICITY How planned Parenthood and its allies are trying to hoodwink Congress by Richard Doerflinger When the U. S. Supreme Court upheld federal family planning regulations on May 23rd, cries of outrage from abortion providers could be heard coast-to-coast. The regulations were issued in 1988 to prevent abortion-related activity by grantees in the Title X family planning program. Since it was first enacted in 1970, the Title X statute has prohibited funding of programs "where abortion is a method of family planning." But it has taken 18 years to show in court that the regulations are in tune with congressional intent and constitutional requirements. To hear Planned Parenthood officials talk, one would think that all the constitutional rights of the women and physicians now hang by a thread. They say that the court has ignored the physician-patient relationship, infringed on the free-speech and advanced the narrow agenda of special-interest groups seeking to ban abortion. THESE CHARGES ARE PART OF A CAREFULLY ORCHESTRATED PUBLIC RELATIONS CAMPAIGN designed to snatch legislative victory from the jaws of legislative defeat. The title of Planned Parenthood's briefing book on the issue says it all: ``The Title X Gag Rule: Winning No Matter What the Court Decides.'' Abortion advocates hope to repeat the gains they made after the Supreme Court's _Webster_ decision: By exaggerating the court ruling, they hope to frighten legislators and the general public into supporting their position and perhaps overturning the regulations in Congress. This campaign also seeks to divert attention from abuses in the family planning program that made the regulations necessary. THE FACT IS that while Congress has sought to prevent grantees from advancing abortion as a family planning method, that is exactly what some of them have done. They even boasted of doing so in affidavits files during the court case. When the regulations came before a federal court in Denver, the director of the Colorado Department of Health insisted that every client receiving an IUD has to be told that "she should consider obtaining an abortion" if she becomes pregnant with the IUD device in place. The director of Planned Parenthood of Utah testified that her six clinics offer "a barrier method ... with the available backup of abortion" as a family planning option. Said the medical director of these clinics: "I believe that I am ... obligated to discuss ... the availability and relatively low health risks of abortion as a backup" when clients choose barrier methods. The same policy of "counseling abortion as a backup for failed contraception" was defended by the director of the Boulder Valley Women's Health Center. OBVIOUSLY THESE POLICIES- which are not peculiar to Title X grantees in Colorado and Utah - contravene not only the 1988 regulations, but also the original 1970 statute. They treat abortion as just another method of birth control, a good "backup" whenever another method fails. Until the Reagan administration introduced reforms, Public Health Service officials sympathetic to Planned Parenthood actually INSTRUCTED GRANTEES to provide "non-directive counseling" and referral for elective abortion. These guidelines had no exception for grantees who don't favor abortion as a response to unintended pregnancy. Planned Parenthood's indignant cries about free speech ring hollow, for the organization had no problem with trying to require all grantees to counsel and refer abortions. Clearly that effort was more of a threat to freedom that the regulations, which simply say that abortion is outside the scope of a pre-pregnancy family-planning program. AS THE SUPREME COURT'S MAJORITY OPINION NOTED, "the Secretary's regulations do not force the Title X grantee to give up abortion-related speech; they merely require that the grantee keep such activities separate and distinct from Title X activities." The need for this "separate and distinct" rule becomes compelling when we realize that adolescents make up one-third of all Title X clients. Until these regulations were issued, Title X's "client confidentiality" policy allowed federally-subsidized programs to counsel unemancipated minors and even refer them for abortions performed in the same clinic, all under the aegis of an official government program, and without any accountability to the minor's parents. The court's decision will not stop Planned Parenthood clinics from undermining families in this way, but it may keep them from doing it in the taxpayers' name. (Richard Doerflinger is associate director for policy development at the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (2) First Annual African-American Pro-Life Conference On Saturday, February 2, 1991, the Respect Life Office, Archdiocese of Chicago will host the first-ever African American Pro-Life Conference. Dr. Dolores Grier, President of the National Association of Black Catholics Against Abortion, suggested the program. The conference will host such speakers as Erma Cardy Craven (Pres. Afro-American Society Against Abortion), William B. Allen (Chairman, U. S. Civil Rights Commision), Rev. Hiram Crawford (Pre. Pro-Family Coalition), and many other renowned Black pro-life leaders. If you would like more information, please contact Fr. Rodger J. Coughlin at (312) 266-6100 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (3) WONDERDRUG RU-486 The Truth Planned Parenthood and its allies have been saying for the past year or two that RU-496 isn't just an abortion pill. They claim that it has other (legitimate) users: such as that it can be used to treat breast cancer, meningeoma (Brain Tumor), Cushing's disease (a pituitary and adrenal disorder), various other cancers, and maybe even AIDS. Dr. Bernard Nathenson addressed Human Life International, and claimed that all of these claims to RU-486's benefits come from a single scholarly source -- an article in _Journal of the American Medical Association_ (August, 1990 issue) by Dr. William Regelson. The JAMA article had footnote references to the scientific studies on which the claims are supposedly based. Thus, Regelson's footnotes have become the one and only way that doubters could verify the wonderdrug's alleged benefits. Dr. Nathanson traced these often obscure journals, and EVERY ONE OF REGELSON'S CLAIMS ARE UNSUPPORTED. "A Shameless Scam," was the speaker's comment. -- RU-486 did NOT cure breast cancer; it had no effect on metastases, and didn't help a single patient live longer. -- The study on meningeomas never mentioned RU-486, but reports that results with similar drugs were "inconclusive to disappointing." -- The experiment using RU-486 for treating Cushing's Disease was never followed up by anyone, because the original trial was too unpromising, as the authors admit. -- No evidence supports any claimed benefit in the treatment of any kind of cancer whatever, and one of the papers Regelson "cited" doesn't even exist. -- Not a single scientific paper in world medical literature suggests that RU-486 can help treat AIDS in any way. To comment on the REAL purpose of RU-486, Dr. Jerome Lejeune, the famed french geneticist commented: "RU-486 has only one capability - to kill unborn babies." The reason that the abortionists wish this campaign of deceit to continue is in the hope of having the FDA approve RU-486 for non-abortion related purposes. In this manner, pro-life forces will not contest the the approval, as the approval will not be for abortofacient use. However, there is a catch to this line of thought - once the FDA approves the drug for ANY use, it CANNOT disapprove it for ANY OTHER use. That is - once the FDA approves a drug for use, it has no power to ban the use of the drug. SO- if the FDA approves RU-486 to cure warts, any doctor in the country (and every PP clinic) will be able to prescribe a potion to induce abortion at home. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Quote of the month: "Politics is the practice of morality...when politician forget this, society will fall into anarchy---and politicians will be tyrants" -Edmund Burke, 1729-1797 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - +---------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Credits: | | 1 - from the Calthoic Standard (Archdiocese of Washington), June 6, | | 1991 p. 7. | | 2 - Afro-American Committee (AAC) News - a division of ALL - | | February, 1991, Vol.1 No. 1, p. 2. | | 3 - From Human Life International Special report No. 81 (June, 1991)| | HLI is located at 7845 Airpark Road, Suite E. Gaithersburg, MD | | 20879, USA (301)670-7884 | | | | The Quote of the month came from reader Bill Hillman. | +---------------------------------------------------------------------+ end v1n9