HHS new rules document proposes religious tenets as basis of health care for women

(Image: Source Zimbio.  Photo by None/Getty Images North America. Taken at a a live taping of Meet the Press at NBC Studios July 13, 2008 in Washington, DC. Even Carly Fiorina, a top McCain surrogate, called birth control a choice.)

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.)

The document states that the government has always provided measures to protect conscientious objectors, whether the objection is religiously or philosophically based:

protecting individuals’ consciences in health service programs and research activities funded by the federal government; and protecting the rights of all health care entities, individual or institutional, from being forced to participate in certain activities. Workers in all sectors of the economy enjoy legal protection of their consciences and religious liberties. In the health care industry, there are several statutory provisions that specifically address individuals’ religious and conscience rights. These federal statutes prohibit recipients of certain federal funds from coercing individuals into participating in actions they find religiously or morally objectionable. These same provisions also prohibit discrimination on the basis of one’s objection to or participation in specific procedures, including abortion or sterilization, or one’s participation in or refusal to participate in abortion or sterilization procedures. More recently, statutory provisions and appropriations riders have been enacted that prohibit federal programs and State and local governments from discriminating against individuals and institutions that refuse to, among other things, provide, refer for, pay for, or cover, abortion. (p.2)

In addition to this, the document proposes to re-define both pregnancy and abortion, and this is where it gets very sticky. The document asserts that there are various beliefs about when pregnancy occurs, and therefore allows each individual health care professional to decide---based on his or her conscience and personal beliefs about when life begins---whether to provide the health service a woman wants. To quote:

Therefore, for the purpose of these proposed regulations, and implementing and enforcing the Church Amendment, Public Health Service Act §245, and the Weldon Amendment, the Department proposes to define abortion as “any of the various procedures—including the prescription and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action—that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation.”

Unfortunately, this is no joke. This is creating health care chaos, and putting a health care practitioners personal preference above two of the basic keystones of medical care:

1. Never to do deliberate harm to anyone for anyone else's interest.
2. To keep the good of the patient as the highest priority.

That's from the Hippocratic oath.

Because of the broad and unscientific---not to mention inconsistent and inconsistently applied---proposed new definition in this document of when a woman could be considered pregnant, nearly any contraception could be considered abortion and a conscientious objector could decide to prohibit a woman from receiving it. As Cristina at RH Reality Check writes

Up until now, the federal government followed the definition of pregnancy accepted by the American Medical Association and our nation's pregnancy experts, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which is: pregnancy begins at implantation. With this proposal, however, HHS is dismissing medical experts and opting instead to accept a definition of pregnancy based on polling data. It now claims that pregnancy begins at some biologically unknowable moment (there's no test to determine if a woman's egg has been fertilized). Under these new standards there would be no way for a woman to prove she's not pregnant. Thus, any woman could be denied contraception under HHS' new science.

In a New York Times article, leaders in women's health care question the motive behind these proposed new rules:

Mary Jane Gallagher, president of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, which represents providers, said, “The proposed definition of abortion is so broad that it would cover many types of birth control, including oral contraceptives and emergency contraception.” “We worry that under the proposal, contraceptive services would become less available to low-income and uninsured women,” Ms. Gallagher said. Indeed, among other things the proposal expresses concern about state laws that require hospitals to provide emergency contraception to rape victims who request it. Nancy Keenan, president of Naral Pro-Choice America, said, “Why on earth is the Bush administration trying to discourage doctors and clinics from providing contraception to women who need it?”

Good question.

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.

If you think I'm rabidly pro-choice, you're right. I am also personally against abortion and extremely skeptical about hormonal birth control. However, choice of how to manage reproduction is, in my opinion, not just legal, but best left in the hands of the one whose body it is. And so it should remain.

How this article and issue appears, in art:

cross-posted from Moms Speak Up, where Julie Pippert is Editor in Chief.

Comments

[John J.]

This is completely ridiculous. Someone else's right to practice their religion cannot infringe on a person's right to health. It is that simple. We don't allow virgin sacrifices on religious grounds (yes, I know this is hyperbole) so we should not allow women's health to be threatened on those grounds either.

[Florinda]

I'm on board with your last paragraph.

One thing that strikes me as ironic in this - as in many other similar areas - is this: hasn't one of the hallmarks of traditional "conservatism" been LESS intervention and regulation of people's personal lives? Things have gotten so turned around that sometimes I'm not sure where or when I'm living any more.

If we didn't have so many different religious practices in this country, I would swear that theocracy isn't that far away - and it might not be anyway.

[LizP]

This is very scary. How do we stop this? Like Florinda I am also "on board" with your last paragraph. Who am I to say what works best for you? And worse yet, I do not want the government telling me what works best for me!

Will contacting our Congresspeople help? This is a completely ridiculous document.