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- NATION, Page 33Campaign NotesABORTIONLoosening the Gag -- a Bit
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- Now that Republican challenger Pat Buchanan has promised to
- refrain from Bush bashing, the White House can afford to reach
- out to more moderate voters. Among them: pro-choice Republican
- women. That was the political explanation behind the
- Administration's decision last week to allow patients in
- federally financed family-planning clinics to receive abortion
- advice under limited circumstances.
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- The new guidelines, which were announced by the Department
- of Health and Human Services, would protect the doctor-patient
- relationship in all respects and would permit doctors to refer
- women to facilities that provide abortions. Even under the new
- rules, however, nurses and other medical counselors are still
- prohibited from referring patients to abortion clinics and from
- providing advice to women about the procedure.
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- By allowing doctors to use their own judgment on whether
- to discuss the abortion option, the Bush Administration is
- trying to dissociate itself from the ``gag rule," issued under
- Ronald Reagan in 1988, without offending conservative voters.
- But abortion-rights advocates immediately condemned the new
- rules since most health-care professionals at federally funded
- clinics are not doctors.
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