Local News in Brief : Abortion Foes Want School Clinics Closed

Anti-abortion leaders meeting in Los Angeles called for the closure of school-based student health clinics, saying the clinics indirectly promote teen-age promiscuity and have not reduced teen pregnancies.

“These clinics have not worked; their urgings have not worked. As a last resort, they have referred students to abortion clinics and just destroyed the life of the unborn child,” said Auxiliary Bishop Carl Fisher of the Los Angeles Roman Catholic Archdiocese.

Student health clinics have opened at three Los Angeles Unified School District high schools since October, 1985. Student illnesses, athletic physical exams and psychological counseling account for 80% of the clinics’ services, according to school board member Julie Korenstein, who called the clinics “highly successful.”

But anti-abortion leaders attending a “school birth-control clinics conference” at Mt. Saint Mary’s College in downtown Los Angeles over the weekend said the clinics use the guise of health services to promote use of contraceptives and counsel pregnant students about abortion.