Contrary to a "vocal minority" in Congress, family planning and women's health programs are about a lot more than abortion and should be funded as such, says a family planning official who will speak tomorrow night at a round-table discussion on the issues.

The host of the round table, which is open to the public, is Adagio Health, which promotes reproductive health and overall well-being to women and their families in 23 Western Pennsylvania counties.

"Family planning services are very comprehensive," Mary Jane Gallagher, president and chief executive officer of the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association, said of the 5,000 agencies and programs represented by the group.

"They include education, counseling, preventive health screening and contraception. We cover education on everything from breast cancer to sexually transmitted disease and we have frank discussions with people about their family planning needs. If a young person comes in, we ask if they are sexually active. If they're not, we encourage continuing to abstain. If they are sexually active, we encourage them to use contraception. Teaching and counseling people to be responsible is really important. ...

"The focus of family planning health centers is planning a family rather than ending up with an unintended pregnancy."

Nevertheless, Ms. Gallagher said, every year when the group makes its appropriation request, "Congress always gets embroiled in other issues like abortion," she said. "It's not a Democrat-Republican issue. ... [There is] a vocal minority who say family planning dollars will be used for abortion..."

As a result, appropriation requests typically get gutted -- last year's request for $100 million ended up at $17 million, Ms. Gallagher said. It's been that way most years since family planning funding started under the Democratic administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960s.

"If we had kept up with inflation, we would have received $759 million total by now," Ms. Gallagher said. "We're at $300 million." The request for this year once again is $100 million.

What can agencies and individuals do about it?

"Americans on the local level need to continue to push for their state legislators and members of Congress to understand family planning is a necessary and strong part of public health," Ms. Gallagher said.

Pennsylvanians are lucky, she noted, since its two U.S. senators, Republican Arlen Specter and Democrat Bob Casey Jr., "clearly understand the importance of family planning."

And, she said, "we have to have hope that a different [presidential] administration will be more kind to family planning."

National Family Planning is a nonprofit, nonpartisan group, so Ms. Gallagher could not say which candidate would best serve family planning's constituency.

"But I can tell you the facts," she said. "Sens. [Hillary] Clinton and [Barack] Obama are co-sponsors of strong federal funding for family planning. Sen. [John] McCain has not been supportive of increasing funds for planning."

The participants at the round table, which will run from 6:30 to 8 p.m., in the Walnut Room of the Duquesne Club, will include local lawmakers and a wide range of leaders from Pittsburgh's business, nonprofit and education communities. People interested in attending should call 412-253-8163.