After renewing requests for $450,000 in federal grants for family planning programs and learning that federal law made the morning-after pill available to teenagers, San Bernadino County supervisors are working to ban the distribution of the morning after pills to minors. To do so, the county supervisors must work around state and federal laws. California law gives teenagers of reproductive age access to birth control and federal law states government agencies receiving family planning grant money must use some of those funds to dispense morning-after pills, unless that agency has a waiver. In an effort to prevent minors from receiving the pill from county-run health clinics, county supervisors are filing for a waiver, which will allow them to continue to receive federal funding for family planning programs.
The request for a waiver will first go to the California Family Health Council, the non-profit group that distributes the grant money, but the final decision will likely go to the Bush Administration via the US Department of Health and Human Services. Bush has already exhibited support for anti-choice legislation when he blocked funding for overseas family planning groups.
