Congress last year agreed to release funds for payment of back UN dues (we were facing the loss of our vote in the General Assembly.) However, this agreement was reached only after an omnibus appropriations bill was passed which severely restricts family planning, sex education, and contraceptive coverage.

The bill will result in a loss of U.S. assistance for any international family planning organization which provides abortions or lobbies for less restrictive abortion laws. Domestic family planning received an increase in funding through the Title X program; however, funding was doubled for a sex education program that stresses abstinence until marriage. The Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan does include contraceptive coverage, but the conscience clause allows physicians, pharmacists, and other health care professionals to refuse to provide contraceptives.

In Florida the Bush administration allotted about ten million to abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education in partnership with the federal government. Programs funded by these grants prohibit program leaders from talking about birth control other than abstinence. Florida is one of about a dozen states that made grants to pregnancy crisis centers which discourage abortion.

Two bills passed in 1999 and signed into law by Governor Bush are in litigation: the "Choose Life" license plate and parental notification. Both cases await court hearings. The parental notification bill is under a temporary injunction, but the state has appealed this.

There is apparently no let up in the campaign to deny women reproductive choice. If this continues there will be fewer sex education programs, more stress on abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, restrictions on family planning, and continuing efforts to ban abortions. If women are to retain the rights of choice guaranteed by Roe vs. Wade, we must remain vigilant.

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