FAMILY-PLANNING MESSAGE IS STILL IN CONFLICT

More than 20 family planning clinics across Missouri receive both state and federal dollars. Providers had thought they must pick one or the other. Federal law requires the clinics to give information about abortion to women who ask for it. State law bars clinics from sharing such information.

However, state law provides an exception if U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson specifically directs agencies to continue giving referrals and if refusal to give referrals results in withholding of federal funds. A letter sent by a Thompson deputy recently says the federal and state regulations "can be read as not inconsistent with each other," thus requiring no such waiver from Thompson.

The federal Title X funds help provide family planning services to more than 18,000 low-income people. Missouri health officials said they will accept the letter in lieu of the order mentioned in the state law.

All this, it must be admitted, is quite puzzling. Notwithstanding a federal bureaucrat's letter, the state and federal requirements are, on their faces, in direct conflict. In fact, this is what the whole Planned Parenthood lawsuits were about, with each one ending in vindication of the state position.

The whole thing is quite puzzling.