Cuts in Family Planning Will Engender Big Loss, Foes Say

Gov. George Deukmejian’s proposal to cut money for family planning out of the state budget could mean thousands of poor county women will end up with unwanted pregnancies and other family problems, Planned Parenthood officials said Tuesday.

“More than 31,000 low-income women in Orange County use family-planning agencies, and you can imagine the health problems and hardships if they had un wanted pregnancies,” said Margie Fites Seigle, executive director of Planned Parenthood/Orange and San Bernardino counties.

Seigle and other county family-planning officials held a press conference in Santa Ana to decry the unexpected proposal in the governor’s budget, which was unveiled Tuesday morning. The elimination of state money for family-planning agencies would save the state about $36 million a year, Deukmejian’s aides have said.

“The reason for the reduction is because of budget problems and the state spending limit we have,” said Wayne Sauseda, a state budget analyst with the governor’s office in Sacramento.

Proposition on Education Blamed

Sauseda said one major budget problem is Proposition 98, the initiative approved by state voters last November that earmarks more money for education.

But Planned Parenthood officers in Orange County said the governor’s move to abolish family-planning money is shortsighted.

“Family planning is often the only health-screening service that low-income women receive,” Seigle said. “Through cancer screening and other screening services, many potentially serious problems are discovered and treated early. For those of us who are fiscal conservatives, family planning is one of the most cost-effective programs offered.”

Seigle added that state Office of Family Planning figures show “that $6.60 is saved in other health and welfare costs for each dollar spent on family planning.”

She said the state provides six family-planning outlets $1.4 million a year in the county.

“Approximately 24% of the dollars used for medical services in the Planned Parenthood system in Orange County is through the (state) Office of Family Planning,” Seigle said.

“Other organizations--such as the Huntington Beach Community Clinic, the Laguna Beach Community Clinic and the Orange County Center for Health, have different percentages. . . . There would certainly be cutbacks, and there would be a need to go to the community to ask for help to subsidize the services for those low-income women.

$1.4 Million in State Aid

“And that would be very difficult. We are talking about $1.4 million (in state aid) that comes into this county for reproductive health services for low-income women.”

Seigle said other family-planning agencies in the county whose budgets depend partly on state aid are the Anaheim Counseling Center and the Orange County Health Care Agency.

Marty Earlabaugh, executive director of the Huntington Beach Community Clinic, said at the press conference that 52% of that agency’s budget comes from state family-planning funds, “so you can see that we could lose more than half of our budget.”

The Orange County family-planning officials said the governor’s action caught them by surprise.

“We had no indication,” Seigle said. “Now the governor in past years has certainly indicated that he would like to see family planning either delivered in a different way or done differently, but we never expected him to ask to eliminate all birth-control and family-planning services.”

No Tie to Abortion Politics

Seigle said that family-planning offices in the county do not provide abortions and that she does not believe that the governor’s decision to cut out family-planning funds has any connection to abortion politics.

“We in family planning know the best way to prevent abortions is to prevent unwanted pregnancies,” she said.

Seigle and other family-planning advocates will seek to persuade the Legislature to resist Deukmejian’s proposal, she said. “We are asking for at least $34 million a year in statewide funding.”

Governor’s $47.8-billion budget proposal calls for major cuts in programs for poor and women.Part I, Page 1.