You may have heard it already: Congress was unable to override the president's veto on a bill that would repeal the gag rule. As a result, federal Title X assistance will only go to family planning organizations that agree not to mention abortion as an option in case of unwanted pregnancies. Does the Bill of Rights guarantee free speech to everybody but providers of medical information?

The Utah Planned Parenthood organization has decided that it owes its patients all the facts, not just the federally sanctioned ones. Not all its patients need abortion information: in fiscal year 1991, Planned Parenthood had 16,415 patients, only 1733 of whom came in for pregnancy testing. And only a fraction of those were so distressed by their pregnancy that a discussion of their options (adoption, parenthood, abortion) was called for. Even so, to bar one tenth of its patients from receiving "offensive" information, the government is denying PP one third of its former budget, money that was mainly used to provide reproductive health care to low-income women. In the end, that's where the buck stops.

You can do something to help Planned Parenthood survive its budget crunch: nothing lofty, just bring your business to the people whose stand you support. If you are a woman, you should have an annual exam anyway; that's the best way to prevent cervical, uterine and breast cancer. You could have that exam done by Planned Parenthood, rather than by your usual doctor, and pay the full fee of $40.00.

There is no standard exam for men (yet). They'll just have to find another way to show their support: by bringing in their meaningful other, maybe?

--Anne Zeilstra