Court Again Strikes Down State Limits on Abortion Aid

SAN FRANCISCO — For the 11th straight year, a state Court of Appeal on Wednesday struck down the Legislature’s sharp restrictions on state-funded abortions for low-income women.

In an uncommonly terse opinion, the three-judge panel held unanimously that limitations on Medi-Cal funded abortions that were included in the 1988 Budget Act are unconstitutional and that state officials must permit full funding to continue.

Although court reversals of the Legislature’s actions have become almost routine, this year’s dispute drew new attention when state Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp refused to defend the restrictions in court, leaving that task to staff counsel of the Deukmejian Administration.

Van de Kamp took the relatively unusual step last month, saying there was no longer any viable legal argument to make in behalf of the restrictions.

As in the past, the latest limitations permitted state-funded abortions only when the mother’s life was in danger, or the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest, or when the mother was under 18 and had notified her parents, or where the unborn child was severely abnormal.

In Wednesday’s action, the appeals panel said in a brief, three-page introduction that the newest restrictions violate the right to privacy--as held in a 1981 decision by the state Supreme Court.

The limitations also conflict with a state constitutional provision limiting a legislative act to a “single subject,” the court said. Budget legislation could not be used to change a separate law that provides for unrestricted Medi-Cal funding of abortions, it said.

The panel then said that, because the case was virtually identical to the one last February in which it struck down 1987 legislative restrictions, it would “simply reiterate” the previous ruling by attaching a copy of the decision.

William D. Lockett, assistant chief counsel for the state Department of Health Services, expressed surprise that the panel did not further discuss the legal issues involved. An appeal to the state Supreme Court will be considered, he said.

Margaret Crosby, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented several groups challenging the funding restrictions, said the panel’s action “reflects the attorney general’s position that these issues are resolved and there is simply no defense left.”

“I hope this message gets through to the Legislature and to the governor and that they stop wasting the taxpayers’ money,” she said.

Restrictions on state-funded abortions have been enacted every year since 1977 but have never been implemented because of court rulings. Had the most recent measures been enforced, about 90% of the estimated 80,000 annual recipients of such aid would have been denied funding, according to lawyers challenging the restrictions.

There had been speculation that the state Supreme Court, now led by a conservative majority, would move to reverse previous rulings striking down the limitations. But in a surprise action last May, the new court refused to review the appeal panel’s February ruling that held the restrictions unconstitutional.

Wednesday’s ruling came in an unsigned opinion from a panel that included Court of Appeal Justices J. Anthony Kline and Jerome A. Smith and San Francisco Superior Court Judge Stuart R. Pollak, sitting by special appointment.