Playing the Heavy Parent

FROM THE PEOPLE who brought you "Get the Government Off the Back of Bob Jones University" comes the latest in creative right wing government; federal "contraceptive policy." That's right, before you can say "60-day public comment period," the Reagan administration will have slipped a new executive regulation into the books, hoping, one must suppose, to mollify the impatient fans of a Constitutional amendment banning abortion.

The rule, which is scheduled to go into effect next month, would require parents to be notified whenever children under the age of 18 receive prescription contraceptives from a family planning clinic using federal funds. In question are the pill, intrauterine devices and the diaphragm. After notifying parents that their daughter had received contraceptives, a clinic would have to verify receipt of the notice before dispensing additional drugs or devices.

Defending the measure recently, President Reagan explained that the Government "has no business interjecting itself between parent and child in a family relationship and where it is very definitely a problem of concern to parents who are responsible for the children." What he didn't address is the very real possibility that the new regulation could result in numerous unwanted pregnancies, as well as an infringement of the tight to privacy guaranteed by the Constitution.

Simply put, the new regulation would probably discourage sexually active teenage women from taking advantage of family planning clinics, most of which receive some degree of federal support Relying on mere common sense, experts in the field agree that those young people will neither begin bringing up contraception with the folks over dinner nor curb their sexual activity at the behest of Ronald Reagan. Alternate sources of contraceptives are available, but most adolescents patronize the clinic in the first place because they do not have access to a private doctor or because they intelligently desire effective methods to supplement those offered over the counter in drug stores.

Writing off the new plan as an ineffective attempt to foster family communication would be naive. The Administration is trying to dictate outdated morality by raising the risks for teenagers who sleep together. The punishments--abortion or undesired parenthood--are extreme and often dangerous. Moreover, Reagan is hypocritically using the very same technique - legislation through regulation--for which he criticized the Internal Revenue Service in denying tax exemptions to segregated private schools. Congress will never have a chance to ratify the contraceptive ban; it becomes law on April 20 unless private citizens block action with a court suit.

The Planned Parenthood Federation of American plans such a suit, but whether it will convince a federal judge that the Administration proposal is unconstitutional remains unclear. We endorse the court action in hopes that an anachronistic and potentially harmful plan will suffer a quick death.