$$tn0120ppgrant_391263_06.JPG

Pamphlet display at Planned Parenthood Hamilton clinic in Hamilton Township on Thursday, January 19, 2012. (Martin Griff | The Times of Trenton)

(Griff, Martin)

TRENTON -- Democratic state lawmakers are once again pushing to restore $7.5 million in this year's state budget for family planning services, a multi-year battle with a Republican governor who customarily slashes the expense.

State Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen) and Assemblyman Vincent Mazzeo (D-Atlantic) said at a news conference Thursday at the Planned Parenthood Trenton Health Center that there is still a great need for family planning services, which took a hit when Gov. Chris Christie eliminated state funding in 2010.

"The question I have to raise is why are we still fighting over this?" Weinberg said. "Why is women's health and women's access to reproductive care still a battle? A battle in this state, in this blue, progressive New Jersey, as well as in the nation?"

Christie said in 2010 he eliminated the funds as part of a wide array of cuts to close a budget gap, but he boasted of the the annual cuts as proof of his anti-abortion bona fides to a national conservative organization last year and repeated that often during his failed campaign for president.

Six of 58 family planning clinics closed following the budget cut, according to the Family Planning Association of New Jersey. The clinics served 131,000 patients in 2010, providing routine gynecological exams, birth control products, health, cancer and sexually transmitted disease screenings, HIV and pregnancy testing and pre-pregnancy counseling.

"I think it's very important that it's established that this money does far more good than anybody would know," Mazzeo said, adding that more than 14,000 women between 18 and 54 years old in Atlantic County are uninsured.

Mazzeo said his own wife had to decide early in their marriage whether to carry their baby, whose skull and brain hadn't developed and would die at birth, to term or induce labor.

"My wife made that decision (to induce labor) and I stood with her.. and we should all realize that women everyday have to make decisions about certain things and we shouldn't stand in the way of this decision making in any way," he said.

Another speaker, Mariel DiDato, said the neighborhood Planned Parenthood that had treated her friend when she was sexually assaulted during high school was no longer there five years later when she needed emergency contraception in college.

"I did not have the money needed to purchase Plan B at a pharmacy, so I went online to look up the operating hours for the Planned Parenthood that I had been to when I was 17, the one right around the corner from my house and the one that had so graciously helped my friend in her time of need. I was alarmed and dispirited to find that that health center had been shut down," she said.

"For me, driving 40 minutes (to another location) was an unnecessary inconvenience, but for women who do not own cars or cannot afford gas, this means inaccessible care."

Marie Tasy, executive director of New Jersey Right to Life, responded that New Jersey is "under no obligation to fund them through our tax dollars."

"We applaud Governor Christie and members of the Legislature and Congress, and other elected officials who, by their words and actions, have taken a strong stand to eliminate funding of Planned Parenthood while ensuring that comprehensive, legitimate health care is funded for women, men and children through the 100-plus (New Jersey) federally qualified health centers," she said.

Samantha Marcus may be reached at smarcus@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @samanthamarcus. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.