Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report Summarizes Editorials on Florida Governor's Proposal for Abortion Alternative Counseling

Main Category: Abortion
Article Date: 10 Mar 2005 - 2:00 PDT

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Florida Lt. Gov. Toni Jennings (R) last week announced that Gov. Jeb Bush (R) plans to ask the state Legislature to authorize $4 million to launch a statewide program to counsel pregnant women and promote alternatives to abortion. The Pregnancy Support Services Program would establish a toll-free hotline to direct women with unplanned pregnancies to local not-for-profit organizations that oppose abortion rights. The organizations -- which would receive state grants and could include religious groups -- would provide services for pregnant women, including helping to find shelter, maternity clothing and infant supplies and providing information about adoption. The program also would provide pregnancy support services, state-funded individual counseling for women up to one year after giving birth and parental skill development classes. In addition, the program would promote abstinence as the best way to prevent unplanned pregnancies (Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report, 3/2). Several newspapers recently have published editorials about the proposal. Some of them are summarized below.

• Daytona Beach News-Journal: Women with unplanned pregnancies "should know that they have other choices" besides abortion, but Florida "should not be spending money specifically to dissuade women from abortion, especially if leaders choose a campaign that incorporates misinformation and ignores the best and most effective ways to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place," a News-Journal editorial says. The state's women would be "better served" if Florida funded "successful" family planning agencies and organizations offering abortion alternatives, as well as increasing Medicaid funding for contraception and mandating insurance coverage for the "most effective forms" of contraception, the editorial concludes (Daytona Beach News-Journal, 3/3).
  
  
• Fort Myers News-Press: Women with unplanned pregnancies face a "daunting" choice and should have "access to professional counseling about the whole array of choices, not propaganda from one side in the debate," a News-Press editorial says. The $4 million in taxpayer funds that Bush has proposed to "mislead" Florida women about the "choices and consequences" of abortion could be spent "more usefully and less controversially on preventing pregnancies," the editorial says, concluding, "For a governor who says he believes in privacy, this is a radical intrusion of government into one of the most private of issues" (Fort Meyers News-Press, 3/8).
  
  
• Tallahassee Democrat: Bush's "inherently wrong" proposal "holds the potential for turning state government into a divisive participant in an already divisive debate," a Democrat editorial says. "Reducing abortions is a goal shared by people on both sides of the debate," the editorial says, concluding that a woman "should be able to arrive at an informed decision, not one that promotes only one perspective and is paid for with taxpayer money" (Tallahassee Democrat, 3/3).

"Reprinted with permission from kaisernetwork.org kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/repro The Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation . © 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

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