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  • Title: Health care policy and the Reagan administration: the case of family planning.
    Author: Crum G.
    Journal: J Health Hum Resour Adm; 1990; 12(4):524-35. PubMed ID: 10105516.
    Abstract:
    In 1970 the Public Health Service Act was passed and Title X had a provision to establish and fund a national network of family planning clinics through the Office of Family Planning (OFP). The Reagan administration's policy towards family planning suffers from dilemmas and shortcomings that had an influence on the programs put in place by Title X. The attempts to reshape the philosophy of Title X have for the most part failed, but these attempts have had some negative effects none the less. This article examines the history of Title X and the attempts by the Reagan administration to change it. For the years 1985-86, the OFP had a budget of $142 million of which $135 million went to fund the clinics and the rest went to training, educational materials, and research and development of newer and better ways of getting family planning to the people. Before 1987 the Reagan administration tried to change the strategy of family planning from sex education, contraception and abortion to advocating abstinence, adoption counseling, infertility counseling, and natural contraception. This tactic failed because the Reagan administration was only able to divert $5 million towards these new goals. Congress was the administration's primary obstacle. Another unsuccessful tactic was to change the method of funding by moving the money to block grants which all states received from the federal government to do with basically as they pleased. But Congress went ahead and funded Title X directly in the usual manner. After 1986 the Reagan administration found a new avenue to accomplish its policy change. The "Superbill" as it is called would restrict funding to any clinics that refer for abortion, counsel for abortion or are closely overlapping fiscally or physically with abortion services. The administration also rail-roaded through new regulations to this effect in case Congress did not pass the Superbill. As of the writing of this article, pro-family planning organizations have gotten court injunctions to block the new regulations.
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