Opinion: Latest blow to family planning

The Bush administration is continuing its veiled attempt to close the door on women's reproductive health care. Bush isn't budging in his opposition to nine states' proposals to use federal money to provide contraception to low-income women, including a Wisconsin plan signed by pro-life Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson when he was governor.

Federal officials say the administration wants to offer more than just family planning services, which is why it will not accept the plan. But in turning his back on these initiatives, Bush is bowing to his conservative supporters yet again and ignoring the needs of poor women.

All the Medicaid proposals would do is include contraceptive coverage for women, and many are extenuations of programs put in place under the Clinton administration. Georgia's proposal, which Bush refused to extend last month, covered 43,000 women on Medicaid who will now most likely lose their birth control coverage. New York's plan would extend family planning benefits to about 400,000 women who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but aren't covered by their employer's insurance.

This is only Bush's latest movement against federally funded family planning. In one of his first official acts as president, he clamped down on aid to overseas family planning organizations that he said promoted abortions. House Republicans proposed to eliminate contraceptive coverage for federal employees, a plan which the appropriations committee overturned last week.

So this isn't the first time the president or his party has taken a hard-line stance against publicly funded family planning services. But it's by far his most targeted one. Bush's rejection is more than just a crackdown on birth control funding -- it's an assault on poor women who need coverage but can't afford it.

Bush will not recognize that expanding Medicaid programs to cover women's reproductive health care can save the government money by reducing health costs from women with unwanted pregnancies and unplanned children. One result of Bush's misguided decision will be more abortions. Surely the president and his anti-abortion supporters don't want that.

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