Back in mid-July, I wrote about a shocking proposal the Bush Administration wanted the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to implement.
I wrote:
In other women’s rights trampling, the Bush Administration is doing the quick step to achieve as many of its oppressive agenda points as possible before the President’s term ends.
This week’s big move?
Removing the blockade and letting anti-choice activists storm the health care castle in order to not only block women from getting abortions that are, for the record, still legal, but also could classify contraception products as abortions and enable “objectors” to prevent women from accessing those too. They call it “preventing discrimination” in hiring on the basis of “religious belief” but it’s clear—after reading all 39 pages of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) proposed rule document—what it really is: trying to cut the legs out from under Roe v. Wade.
What does the document say? (Click here to read the complete PDF, provided courtesy of RH Reality Check.)
I then went on to summarize and wrote:
Another good question is why the 39 page HHS document provides no measures for patient protection, or a guarantee that if one health care practitioner refuses to provide requested health care, another who will provide it will be made available to the patient.
Clearly the goal is to force health care to hire anti-choice people who will put their own beliefs and interests above the patients’ and who will block access to basic legal health care. Good medicine and good health care is not the goal. Choking the religious rights’ anti-choice agenda down patients’ throats is.
It’s shocking that HHS, which is supposed to be dedicated to providing better health services to people in the US, would instead put a religious belief, which is a matter of opinion, above health care, which is a matter of scientific fact and law. Does it seem that this new rules proposal is achieving the HHS goals?
Let’s not be naive. This is not about protecting fundamental freedom of belief. This is not about protecting people from discrimination. This is patently and clearly—and if you don’t believe me, go read each of the articles I linked to and the original document from HHS—about putting anti-choice health care workers into protected positions so that they may block women’s access to legal and necessary reproductive health care.
My friend, the impressive Cynthia Samuels, recently reminded me about this issue and the hard work many women and groups are doing to protect women’s right to make choices about reproduction and their bodies.
Her letter speaks very plainly and explains this issue straightforwardly—including why you need to care, even if you do not believe in abortion:
Cynthia wrote:
It’s critical that people know about it before the election because access to legal contraceptive is being challenged on many fronts. If you agree that making many forms of birth control illegal is a horrifying idea, then you want our presidential candidates, and those for local offices too, to declare their positions on these issues. I am helping Birth Control Watch, a website established to make this information, and tools to counter it, available, to reach out to bloggers and, of course, I’ve started with you.
Please take the time to visit the site and, hopefully, write about what you find there. If you’ve ever read The Handmaid’s Tale, you know how dire this is. Here’s the information:
Our access to legal birth control is at risk.
From proposed new HHS Regulations:
The Bush Administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) wants to threaten patient’s access to health services and information by greatly expanding existing laws intended to govern the right to deny women access to most forms of birth control.
From an unimaginable Colorado Ballot Referendum
A constitutional amendment proposed for the 2008 Ballot in Colorado seeks to establish legal personhood from the moment of fertilization. Changing Colorado’s constitution to grant fertilized eggs (a biological stage that, according to medicine, doesn’t even constitute a pregnancy) could prohibit the use of the most effective forms of birth control, restrict in-vitro fertilization, end embryonic stem cell research and more.
From vicious disinformation campaigns
One of the most creative attacks on birth control is the claim contraception can cause abortion. “The Pill Kills” is a campaign led by anti-contraceptive groups to try to confuse the public, using scientific–sounding arguments, that hormonal contraception can terminate a pregnancy. Contraception does not terminate a pregnancy, only prevents one. The “pro-life” movement’s own most-respected medical experts have implored the movement’s leaders to stop making these inaccurate claims.
There are other issues too – abstinence-only education and the lack of protection for women whose pharmacists refuse to fill birth control prescriptions.
Again, please take a look; it’s important that candidates make their views known on these issues.
No.
No, men and politicians do not get to make my health choices for me. They do not get to make my reproductive choices for me. They do not get to legislate my moral choices, nor (and most importantly) do they get to tell me other people’s religious and moral choices are more important than mine and thus they get to trample my rights.
Never again.
Suggested additional reading:
The complete PDF of the proposed HHS rule changes
New York Times article on this issue (a must-read)
Cynthia Samuels Don’t Gel Too Soon
A Little Pregnant: Why no one with a uterus should vote for John McCain
I have suspected – and said to anyone who would listen – that in the end they would come after our access to birth control. It’s never been about “the right to life” for the right but about controlling women’s freedom.
Excellent piece!
If someone doesn’t want to dispense birth control and it’s a regular part of their job description, then they need to get a new job.
How about if I wanted to come to work naked because it was part of my religion? Would they make such an exception for MY religious beliefs?
And seriously, hasn’t Bush done enough damage already? Can’t he just slink away with his tail between his legs, as he well should?
Are we even in America anymore???
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