Gov’t tries to sneak in anti-choice rules

Pro-choice organizations sprang into action in July after they discovered proposed Bush administration regulations that endanger women’s reproductive rights and medical care.

Nationwide groups including Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America and the National Organization for Women have generated tens of thousands of e-mail petitions and letters, including from medical organizations, to Health and Human Services Department (HHS) Secretary Michael Leavitt. They express outrage over the proposed new rules, which would affect women’s access to family planning services.

Although mass pressure caused the omission of some language, which deliberately confused abortion with popular contraceptives, Leavitt formally issued the proposed HHS regulations on Aug. 21. They much resemble the prior draft and are ominous in several respects.

The 42 pages lay out the so-called “health care provider conscience” exception, whereby medical and nonmedical personnel can refuse to provide vital health care services due to “moral or religious” beliefs. It impacts on nearly 600,000 HHS-funded health care providers, who must certify that they will hire employees, even if they oppose abortion and “other medical procedures,” or their funding will be forfeited.

Women’s rights, health care and family planning advocates, warning of the rules’ dangers, are stepping up their national campaign against them, asking that objections be sent to HHS within the government’s 30-day comments period, before the regulations are put into final form.

Women’s groups stress that HHS does not guarantee birth control services, or even information. Since the regulations mandate that any staff member at a federally funded facility could deny services, prescriptions, information, counseling or referrals, this opens the door to many abuses, including denial of contraceptives. Women’s groups insist that the final version protect this medical necessity.

This concern is well founded. The reactionary campaign to undo all reproductive rights extends to birth control. Anti-choice forces have stepped up their efforts to stop federal funding to states for contraceptive services.

Mary Jane Gallagher, president of the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association, told Leavitt in a public letter: “You can preserve access to comprehensive family planning with just a few words. Until you take these steps, we have no choice but to assume contraception was the target all along.” (nfprha.org)

Pro-choice advocates also insist that HHS ensure that existing reproductive rights laws not be undermined, including state requirements that hospitals dispense emergency contraceptives to sexual-assault survivors.

Many are troubled that the rules could be more broadly interpreted, allowing, for example, the denial of treatment to people with AIDS or immigrant families.

Debra L. Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women and Families, stresses, “This draconian regulation means that women can be refused care and information by the very people they trust to provide it.” (nationalpartnership.org)

HHS is targeting the 17 million women—low-income, uninsured or underinsured, many of them African-American or Latina—who rely on federally funded reproductive health services. At risk are their rights to make informed health care decisions and obtain essential care. With a growing economic crisis and loss of jobs, incomes and insurance, the government should be expanding women’s health care, not underfunding programs and endangering existing services.

Since the Bush gang came into office, they have pushed to severely set back women’s reproductive rights and health care services. In its final months in office, the administration is trying to give anti-choice forces what they want, putting right-wing ideology ahead of science and health while harming women.

In this latest fiasco, HHS would even reward Bush’s right-wing, anti-choice allies with federal funding for their bogus “pregnancy crisis centers,” which provide false information and try to dissuade women from seeking family planning services.

What has stopped the ultraright so far in their efforts to overturn reproductive rights has been the determination, hard work and organizing of pro-choice and women’s health advocacy groups, and the mass pressure by women nationwide.

Women’s rights and health organizations see this as a pivotal battle. Major national pro-choice groups are strongly mobilizing. They urge everyone who supports reproductive rights and women’s health care to flood HHS with letters and e-mails before Sept. 25 demanding Leavitt rescind the regulations in full. Sign on at www.naral.org, www.plannedparenthood.org or www.now.org.