House Votes to Overturn Abortion Counseling Gag Rule : Family planning: Information would be available at federally funded clinics. Tally falls short of that needed to override an expected veto.

The House voted, 251 to 144, Thursday to overturn the Bush Administration’s so-called gag rule regulation that prohibits abortion counseling at federally financed family planning clinics, but the tally fell short of the two-thirds needed to override a veto.

The action came as part of the chamber’s approval of a House-Senate compromise on a bill to renew federal family planning programs for low-income women. The gag rule regulation would be lifted through September, 1997.

The measure now goes to the Senate, which is expected to muster a solid majority in support of the package. The conference committee’s proposal essentially follows the House version.

Although President Bush has not said so, he is widely expected to veto the legislation. Bush has rejected other such measures in the past because they sought to overturn the gag rule regulation.

The conference committee measure could be the last chance the lawmakers have to block the gag rule. The prohibition, issued in 1988, has been held up as a result of court challenges. Officials said the rule could go into effect sometime this month.

Assuming the Senate acts quickly, President Bush could be forced to take another visible stand on an abortion-related issue just days before the Republican Convention, which is to begin Aug. 17.

The President has been a staunch opponent of abortion. But Republicans who support abortion rights have increasingly spoken out against the GOP’s anti-abortion stance and are expected to try to alter the party’s position at the convention.

The controversy arose in the mid-1980s when the Ronald Reagan Administration proposed the regulation as a way to prohibit federally financed family planning clinics from advising women about abortions, arguing that such procedures were immoral.

Since then, the regulation has been held in abeyance while the issue was tested in the courts. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the rule in 1991 and the Administration has been laying the groundwork to put it into effect. In the meantime, Congress has refused to reauthorize the family planning program, forcing many clinics to cut services drastically.

Under the regulation, physicians and counselors are forbidden to mention abortion as a possible option or to answer routine questions about it--even in cases where a woman specifically asks.

The compromise approved Thursday would reverse the Administration’s ban and instead would require clinics that receive federal funds to provide abortion counseling if a woman requests it.

Clinics could be exempted from the new requirement if their refusal to provide abortion counseling is based on their sponsors’ religious beliefs or moral convictions. But in such cases, they would have to refer women seeking such counseling to another provider.

Bowing to some conservatives, the measure also would require clinics that are federally financed but provide abortion services with private money to certify that they are complying with state laws that require parental notification or consent where minors are involved.

Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), who served as floor manager for the conference committee compromise, called the Administration’s gag rule “self-defeating” and warned that it “leaves poor women with fewer and fewer ways to avoid pregnancy.”

He branded the regulation “bad medicine, bad law and bad precedent.”

At the same time, Rep. Clyde C. Holloway (R-La.) warned his colleagues that Bush “strongly supports the gag rule” and would seek to block any move to repeal it. “If this is not subsidizing abortion, I don’t know what is,” he told the House.

Besides financing counseling for pregnant women, the program also provides grants for training and educating clinic staffers and disseminating general information about family planning and population growth.

The legislation would authorize $1.03 billion over five years, including $195 million for fiscal 1993, some $47 million more for next year than approved by the House on July 28.