T H E Clinic For Women

The Bush Administration's long-heralded gag order--a regulation that prevents federally funded family planning centers from providing abortion counseling--went into effect Thursday, leaving a bureaucratic ball of confusion for California clinics leading a nationwide fight to thwart the rule.

The Bush Administration's long-heralded gag order--a regulation that prevents federally funded family planning centers from providing abortion counseling--went into effect Thursday, leaving a bureaucratic ball of confusion for California clinics leading a nationwide fight to thwart the rule.

When Ada Sellers went to her doctor in September for a pregnancy test, she figured that the most shocking news she could get was that she was expecting a child, at the age of 46. She was wrong. Sellers' doctor sat her down and broke the news that not only was she pregnant, she was HIV-positive. Sellers said that because she was in a longtime, monogamous relationship, she was at a loss to explain how she contracted the virus, and she said her doctors have yet to determine the source.

Calling on the hot line was a tearful, stammering 15-year-old girl with gonorrhea. She was coaxed into visiting T.H.E. Clinic for Women in Los Angeles, where she had a medical exam and was given antibiotics to cure her condition. She also got her first birth control device. The teen-ager was one of more than 500,000 young females statewide who last year visited hundreds of state-supported family planning clinics that are scheduled to lose their funding in July under Gov.

Despite the prosperous economy, the proportion of Americans without health insurance climbed to 16.1% last year, with Latinos having the highest uninsured rates, the Census Bureau reported Monday. Nationwide, 43.4 million Americans lacked health insurance in 1997, up from 41.7 million, or 15.6% of the population, in 1996. The incidence of children under 18 without insurance remained unchanged near 15%, or nearly 11 million. Some states have higher non-coverage rates than others.

When Ada Sellers went to her doctor in September for a pregnancy test, she figured that the most shocking news she could get was that she was expecting a child, at the age of 46. She was wrong. Sellers' doctor sat her down and broke the news that not only was she pregnant, she was HIV-positive. Sellers said that because she was in a longtime, monogamous relationship, she was at a loss to explain how she contracted the virus, and she said her doctors have yet to determine the source.

Eva Barcia spends her days explaining the mysteries of conception and contraception to poor and working-class women and has become all too familiar with the strange discrepancies between what women say they want and how they end up living. Time and again, in those intimate conversations between strangers, women make their confessions to Barcia: They would have limited the number of children they had had, they tell the family planning counselor, if they had only known how to go about it.

Dora Gallagher, 33, will be a volunteer group leader at Women for Positive Living, a free seminar Feb. 19-20 for women infected with HIV. Her involvement with the Los Angeles Shanti Foundation, sponsor of the event at T.H.E. Clinic for Women in the Crenshaw area, began in 1992 when she attended a Shanti-run HIV seminar. She was interviewed by Mike Wyma.

The last patient was wheeled out of the old nursing home more than two years ago. The long hallways are empty, the examining rooms bereft of furnishings, the floors gritty with construction dust. But soon medical treatment will again be available in this complex under an ambitious plan for a new community health center to serve residents lacking adequate health insurance.

The Mexican mother worries because the doctor issued a diagnosis for her baby without ever touching the child. The Japanese patient believes that the doctor's office staff is angry because of the atmosphere of brisk efficiency rather than welcoming politeness. The elderly Korean woman's family blames her stroke on nurses and doctors who upset her inner balance by treating her carelessly and then not noticing her quiet anger.