At&T Planned Parenthood Cutoff Deplored

State Sen. Al Williams has served notice on the American Telephone & Telegraph Co. that he intends to pursue a nationwide boycott of the company's long-distance services if the company does not reverse its recent decision to cut money to Planned Parenthood's national teen-pregnancy-prevention programs.

A Northwest spokesman for AT&T, however, says the company has no intention of backing away from its decision.

Walt Greenwood, AT&T's public-relations director here, said the company never intended its contributions as an endorsement of Planned Parenthood's position on abortion.

By cutting off money to Planned Parenthood, AT&T has reached ``a position of neutrality,'' he said.

In an April 4 letter to AT&T board Chairman Robert Allen, Williams, a Seattle architect, called the company's action ``woefully misguided.'' He called on Allen to reverse the decision immediately.

``I think this is a terrible sort of thing for a corporation to do,'' said Williams, a Democrat.

AT&T announced April 2 that it would no longer provide money for the teen educational programs of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America because of the organization's increasingly public stand on abortion.

Planned Parenthood had been a recipient of AT&T funding for 25 years. Last year the organization received $50,000 from AT&T, Greenwood said.

Planned Parenthood immediately accused the company of ``corporate cowardice'' for caving in to the demands of a small group of anti-abortionists.

Recently, AT&T had been the focus of a letter-writing campaign and threatened boycott by the Christian Action Council of Falls Church, Va.

Reynold Levy, corporate vice president of the AT&T Foundation, the firm's philanthropic arm, said despite the fact that AT&T gifts were aimed at helping families and teen-age parents, it had proven impossible to pursue such ends through Planned Parenthood without being identified in the public mind with Planned Parenthood's political activity.

He said he had been told late yesterday that AT&T officials in New York had no intention of reversing the company's stand.