Yesterday's packed hearing on state Rep. Judy Clibborn's bill to regulate "limited service pregnancy centers" (as the pro-choice advocates call them) or "pregnancy resource centers" (as Christian conservatives call them), drew hundreds of people (mostly from the anti-abortion side of the debate).

It was impossible to get into the hearing room, so accommodations were made: The pro-lifers who came down, predominantly teenagers, were set up in the senate gallery, and the hearing was broadcast on TV in the chamber for them. (There were also groups gathered around TVs in the hallway and bunched up around laptops watching online.)

Erica, a judge at NARAL's Choice for Chocolate event last week, edited my piece about the hearing and (hmmmmm), left out one of the sharpest (and by sharp, I mean like an elbow) quips of the day.

Avante Jackson, Executive Director of the Tri-Cities Pregnancy Network , one of the centers in question, who was against the bill, started out: "This bill seeks to deter women at a time when community-based resources are more needed than ever." And then her jab: "We fit very nicely into the state’s budget because we’re not a part of the state’s budget."

Her statement, which drew loud cheering from the kids in the senate gallery, was a dig at Planned Parenthood which, confirming the fears of the anti-abortion groups, gets some state funding; and, as a perfect soundbite for the conservative crew, hinted at supposedly wasteful government spending vs. the conservative "Thousand Points of Light" theory (famously pushed by the first President George Bush), where charity and volunteerism trumps government services. [Note from editor Erica C. Barnett: Wouldn't that be an argument for DIY abortion services?]

I asked Planned Parenthood Political Director Dana Laurent to respond to the dig. She said:

Family planning providers and the comprehensive reproductive health care services they provide are part of a cost-saving solution to our state's budget. In fact, for every $1 million cut from family planning, Washington State accrues $4.1 million in new unintended pregnancy care costs right away---within 9 months.

And then, throwing an elbow of her own at the conservative pregnancy centers, like Jackson's (which provides limited ultrasounds, pregnancy tests, counseling, and referrals to "abortion recovery groups" but no abortion or birth control) added:

These vital services, including birth control and cancer screenings, which are not provided by Limited Service Pregnancy Centers, are also a lifeline for families barely hanging on in these hard economic times; an unintended pregnancy can result in hunger, homelessness, or worse.

Laurent also notes that the state brings in 9 federal dollars for every dollar it spends on Take Charge, the state's largest family planning program.

Jim Stevenson of the state Dept. of Social and Health Services confirms that DSHS does not provide funding for the "limited service" or "emergency" centers, adding that Planned Parenthood does get reimbursements---$16.3 million in 2009. [Note from editor Erica C. Barnett: That represents a whole 0.054 percent of the state's $30 billion budget!]

Planned Parenthood believes "limited service pregnancy centers" get "abstinence-only" money from the feds.

Thomas Glessner, spokesman for the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, who organized yesterday's anti-abortion convergence on Olympia, says "to the best of my knowldedge, none our centers in Washington State get federal money." He also said the abstinence only education money was a Bush-era program and has been "scaled back dramatically" under Obama.