Family planning clinics--a story of growth and conflict

During the 1960s, as demand for effective contraceptives increased and women expressed a desire for smaller families, an "odd lot" of groups came together to press for federally supported family planning services for low-income women. The drive culminated in 1970 with the passage of Title X of the Public Health Service Act, which authorized the funds that fed a network of family planning clinics. At the height of the national family planning program, approximately 2,500 agencies were operating clinics at more than 5,000 sites, providing services annually to almost five million patients. As part of the screening for medical methods of birth control, family planning clinics have provided basic physical examinations and related tests to millions of low-income women and teenagers who might not otherwise have had access to those services. Clinics have also been heavily utilized for pregnancy tests, screening for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), infertility screening and referral for abortion, adoption and sterilization services. Other desired achievements have been more elusive and difficult to document--reductions in the number of high-risk and unintended pregnancies and in poverty rates, for example. The program's role in providing contraceptive services to teenagers and its involvement in the abortion controversy have led to a number of political, legislative and judicial skirmishes with conservatives, Congress and the Reagan administration. Funding for Title X declined during the 1980s and is now surpassed by Medicaid as the largest source of family planning dollars. Diminishing funds at a time when some expenses--for supplies, malpractice insurance and treatment of STDs, for example--are increasing have resulted in fewer clinic sites and other service cutbacks. The suggestion has been made that it is time to eliminate categorical funds for family planning and integrate all services into the general medical care system. Family planning providers say an integrated arrangement would not meet the needs of much of their patient population and would not provide the special attention they feel is needed for successful contraceptive practice among low-income, high-risk women. Instead, they suggest expanding the scope of services in family planning clinics, out of an awareness that the continuing high prevalence of unintended childbearing, among the young and disadvantaged in particular, is part of a larger problem of living in a desolate social environment.