Administration seeks to limit reproductive rights
We Americans have a long history of celebrating our constitutional rights, and I support the rights the Supreme Court declared for women in the area of reproduction during the 1960s and 1970s. The Bush administration has taken upon itself to redefine for the women of America what constitutes an abortion.
According to a proposal that was leaked to the New York Times, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), under Secretary Michael Leavitt, wants “hospitals, clinics, researchers and medical schools ... to sign ‘written certifications’ as a prerequisite” to getting federal funds. As reported by Robert Pear of the Times, “the recipients of aid under federal health programs” would have to “certify that they will not refuse to hire nurses and other providers who object to abortion and even certain types of birth control.”
Sen. Hillary Clinton was one of the first to criticize the Bush plan because it “would have ‘damaging’ consequences on women’s ability to access birth control,” reported Matthew Jaffe of ABC News. Clinton stated, “This is a gratuitous, unnecessary insult to women of the United States of America. These rules pose a dire threat to women’s health, to health-care providers, and to uninsured and low-income Americans seeking care.”
An angry Clinton wrote an article for the Huffington Post, in which she stated the Bush administration is “putting ideology before science and women’s health.” She is afraid that the new regulations will “put in place new barriers to accessing common forms of contraception like birth control pills, emergency contraception and IUDs by labeling them ‘abortion.’ ”
Deborah Kotz of US News and World Report writes that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and Planned Parenthood have “voiced their objections, especially to the government’s definition of the onset of pregnancy.” The new regulations would define life as beginning at fertilization—not implantation. “According to the ACOG, ‘contraception is the implantation of the fertilized ovum,’ based on the ability to clinically detect pregnancy through elevated hormone levels.”
Here is where HHS’s new definition of abortion comes in. Kotz explains that “[h]ormonal contraceptives—especially those that contain only progesterone like the minipill and the Miren intrauterine device—don’t always suppress ovulation, so sometimes a fertilized egg is expelled before its implantation in the uterus.” Leave it to the Bush administration, driven by its political agenda, to determine for all American women when they are pregnant and if they are guilty of having an abortion by taking birth control pills or using an IUD.
Here is another dilemma. Federal law prohibits discrimination against medical professionals and providers from being forced to perform abortions. Under the new HHS regulations, would those same doctors, nurses, and medical establishments who oppose abortion on moral or religious grounds, now be allowed to refuse to prescribe or provide contraceptives that have been available to American women for years? The simple answer is yes.
Women continue to fight to get their birth controls pills covered by their health plans while the same plans covered Viagra for men. In an article for ABC News, Jennifer Parker reported that Carly Fiorina, John McCain’s aid, brought up this point and said, “Those women would like a choice.” This created an embarrassment for McCain when he was asked by a reporter to comment, which he refused to do. For the record McCain voted in 2003 and 2005 against mandating health care providers to cover birth control for women. Since private health care providers do not cover abortions, does this mean those who cover birth control pills no longer will have to because by the HHS’s definition, birth control pills are a form of abortion?
Why is the HHS making this push to change the definition of abortion at this time? Can it be that head honcho Michael Leavitt fears that he and his disciples will be replaced by Democrats after this fall’s election?
It does make this woman wonder why the Bush administration wants to make it more difficult for women to get contraceptives. Lack of contraception contributes to unwanted pregnancies, which in turn creates more of a demand for abortion.
ABOUT THE WRITER
Carol Jensen is a long-time Barstow resident, graduating from Kennedy High School and Barstow College, where she was an English instructor for many years. Much of her time now is spent writing political and social commentary. She may be contacted at cajensen49@msn.com.
