Romney signs bill on family planning

Governor Mitt Romney has signed a bill that could expand the number of people who get family-planning services, including the morning-after pill, confusing some abortion and contraception foes who had been heartened by his earlier veto of an emergency contraception bill.

''The guy's not coming around," said Joseph M. Scheidler, the national director of the Pro-Life Action League, a Chicago-based organization of 6,000 members that considers many forms of birth control to be tantamount to abortion. ''If he's trying to win prolife folks, he won't get the hardcore."

The new law calls for the state to seek a federal waiver to expand the number of low-income people eligible for comprehensive family-planning services statewide. If the federal government approves the waiver, an estimated 88,000 more people would be eligible, said Richard Powers, spokesman for the state's Executive Office of Health and Human Services.

The services include the distribution of condoms, abortion counseling, and the distribution of emergency contraception, or morning after pills, by prescription, Powers said. In addition, the services include testing and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases, medical and gynecological examinations, counseling on methods of birth control, screening for breast and cervical cancer, prenatal care, and counseling and referral services for pregnancy and infertility. Abortions would not be covered under the waiver. Under a court ruling, they are covered under the state's Medicaid program only when deemed medically necessary, Powers said.

In July, Romney vetoed a bill to expand the use of the morning-after pills by requiring hospitals to offer them to rape victims and requiring pharmacists to dispense them without prescriptions. At the time, the governor embraced opponents' argument that the pills not only prevent pregnancies, but cause abortions. The Legislature overrode the veto in September.

The administration did not publicize the waiver request. Yesterday, the governor's communications director, Eric Fehrnstrom, suggested that the decision was not controversial.

''The Commonwealth already provides these health services to low-income women, and we have no objection to the Legislature's directive that we seek a waiver to expand the eligible population to women with a slightly higher income," Fehrnstrom said in a statement.

But activists on both sides of the highly charged abortion debate saw another wrinkle in Romney's abortion position. As a candidate in 1994, he said he would keep abortion ''safe and legal" and in 2002 said he would support the current abortion laws. But this year, as he contemplated a run for president, he vetoed the emergency contraception bill, criticized the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion, and called himself ''personally prolife."

Yesterday, the abortion-rights advocates who had denounced his emergency contraception veto issued muted praise for the governor. If the federal government agrees to the waiver, they said, the state could serve people with incomes too high to be eligible for Medicaid and still receive 90 percent reimbursement from the federal government. The state Department of Public Health is now spending about $5 million a year for family-planning coverage for those who are not covered by Medicaid, said O'Reilly.

''We've had our differences with Governor Romney, but we're glad to see him recognize the potential cost savings that this measure could bring," said Angus McQuilken, public affairs director for the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts. ''We're all looking for ways to control costs and expand healthcare coverage for Massachusetts residents, and we hope to work with the Romney administration to make this program a success."

''He finally realized it's a way to save money and do the right thing," said Elaine O'Reilly, a lobbyist for the Massachusetts Family Planning Association, which has been working to expand family-planning services for several years. Romney vetoed the measure when it appeared as an outside section to the budget two years ago, she said.

The waiver's champions in the Legislature were Representative Patricia A. Walrath, a Stow Democrat, and Senator Richard T. Moore, an Uxbridge Democrat, who cochairs the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing.

''The way I look at it, you can't talk about providing care to the uninsured without really taking advantage of this waiver for family planning," said Elaine DeRosa, executive director of the Cambridge Economic Opportunity Committee, which provides family-planning services, including emergency contraception, in Cambridge's neighborhood health centers. ''This is a cost-effective way to give women increased access to care that can only improve their health. And he's a good businessman, and I think he saw a bargain."

The federal government has already approved waivers from 21 other states, allowing them to expand their services, O'Reilly said. Massachusetts aims to nudge up income limits so that those making twice the poverty rate would qualify. That would mean that to receive the benefit a single woman could earn no more than $19,040 and that a family of four could earn no more than $38,700, O'Reilly said.

But Romney's move has left some conservatives across the country confused, as well.

Scheidler, of the Pro-Life Action League, said his movement would like to see the governor take unqualified stands against abortion and contraceptive funding.

''If he were consistent, he would have vetoed that," Scheidler said of the waiver.

''Birth control is the kissing cousin of abortion."