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AFY_Joe
AFY_JoeThursday, December 18, 2008 at 3:35:00 PM EST
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Apparently not content in bringing Armageddon to America's economy and standing around the world, George W. Bush has decided to include women's health in the closing days of his presidency.
Today the Department of Health and Human Services published its new regulation which gives very broad rights for health care workers to deny services to patients based on moral and religious grounds, or even refer patients to those who would provide the services. As Emily Douglass at RH Reality Check notes, this is an absolute disaster for women's rights and health:
An early, leaked draft version of the regulation specifically suggested that providers who consider hormonal birth control to be an abortifacient should not have to prescribe it or refer patients for its prescription. The regulation relied on arcane, non-medical definitions of pregnancy to suggest that the belief that pregnancy begins at fertilization is a valid and that, a hormonal contraceptive, which anti-choicers claims block implantation of a fertilized egg, is tantamount to abortion. The second, released draft, now published, does not conflate contraception with abortion, but in its broad scope nonetheless provides protections for providers who would like to do just that. "The regulation confirms what we feared," says Marilyn Keefe of the National Partnership for Women & Families. "HHS refused to allay any of the concerns raised in earlier iterations. Contraception clearly remains a target."
As Douglass notes in her post, the process to overturn this regulation would be difficult. But that's where WE come in. We'll no doubt keep you updated on how we can push for legislation in the next congressional session to toss this archaic HHS rule to the curb as soon as humanly possible.
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by Anatic09
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