08:44 PM CST on Thursday, March 10, 2005

By CHRISTY HOPPE / The Dallas Morning News

AUSTIN – About $5 million would be stripped from health screening and contraceptive counseling and given to groups that counsel women against abortion under a provision placed into the state budget by the Senate Finance Committee.

Family planning groups slammed the money shift Thursday, saying crisis pregnancy centers that stand to benefit from the infusion of state money are unregulated, unlicensed, and do not have medical staff or training.

In addition, critics said, the family planning services that would lose the money are preventing unanticipated pregnancies and are key in diagnosing cancer, diabetes, kidney disorders and sexually transmitted diseases.

"To rob low-income women of their basic health care and family planning services will result in more unintended pregnancies, state-paid Medicaid births and abortions," said Peggy Romberg, head of the Women's Health and Family Planning Association of Texas.

But Finance Chairman Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, said that Planned Parenthood clinics and similar groups already receive $100 million a year from the state and that diverting $5 million over the next two years should not be a problem.

"They're not different from any other special-interest group," Mr. Ogden said. "It's money they've come to depend on."

Giving to crisis pregnancy centers borrows little from the existing strategy while funding another aspect of women's health care, he said.

"We haven't done it before, and I'd like to see how it works. From a human-need standpoint, or a standpoint of an attempt to basically relieve a certain amount of social suffering and pain, that money has the potential of being very well spent," he said.

The crisis pregnancy centers counsel women in carrying their pregnancies to term, providing emotional support, information and referrals.

Ms. Romberg said that the state's efforts in women's health care already are "woefully inadequate" and that the state Health Department estimates that the screening and contraceptive services reach only 25 percent of eligible women.

Pregnancy prevention education saves the state almost $500 million in medical costs for prenatal services, delivery and newborn care, she said. And it alleviates the need for anti-abortion counseling.

"It's almost pennywise and pound foolish," Ms. Romberg said.

Mr. Ogden said the state already furnishes health care to low-income women through Medicaid programs. Family planning groups do not offer a unique aspect of health care, he said.

The vote to adopt the amendment onto the Senate's budget bill was 9-4. The bill is not yet complete and still faces Senate passage and reconciliation with the House budget bill.

E-mail choppe@dallasnews.com