PLANNED PARENTHOOD DEBATES EXPANSION

Planned Parenthood is embroiled in an internal debate over converting its clinics into full-fledged "health care centers," the Associated Press reports. Leaders of the abortion and birth-control advocacy group are pushing the plan to help keep Planned Parenthood afloat while many of its low-income patients are steered into managed-care health insurance plans. They told the AP that expanding services to include routine preventive care would improve Planned Parenthood's chances of negotiating contracts to service Health Maintenance Organizations. Planned Parenthood's services currently are limited to counseling, abortions, gynecological exams, pregnancy and breast cancer tests, and dispensing contraceptives. TIME senior correspondent Richard Ostling says the move could also help cushion Planned Parenthood against anticipated cuts in the government funding it receives for pregnancy-related services, since a number of anti-abortion legislators and governors were elected last November.