HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt is awfully proud of the controversy from the recent draft regulation on what he calls “Physician Conscience:”
“I’m delighted to announce that with the help of Planned Parenthood, my blog -- for the first time -- received more visits than my teenage son’s MySpace page.”
Congratulations, Mr. Leavitt! But what about our fear that your new regulation will redefine contraception as abortion -- and reduce access, especially among low-income women, to birth control?
On that topic this is all Mr. Leavitt had to say:
“This regulation would not be aimed at changing or redefining any of that.”
However, he never actually addressed the definition, only quickly landing on the claim that redefining abortion was never the intention of regulation, then moving on to the typical talking points the he knew would get him a standing ovation from his right-wing constituents. “Intentions” of the rule aside, where were the actual details of the definitions addressed?
Well, if he's not going to discuss it, I will. A section of the regulation proposal defines abortion as “any of the various procedures...that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and birth – whether before of after implantation.” The crux of our fears lies in the fact that many types of birth control prevent pregnancy by blocking the implantation of a fertilized egg. The Bush administration is not only attempting to define a pre-implanted, fertilized egg as a 'human being,' it's also attempting to restrict womens' access to birth control.
What about low-income women who don't have the luxury of going to any physician of their choosing? They need their doctor to prescribe birth control. If their doctors a.) believe in this bogus definition of birth control as an abortion and b.) refuse to provide those services, then these women are out of luck. Don't low-income women face enough barriers as it is? For their sake, and the sake of women everywhere, we need to send a message to Leavitt that this definition is not only scientifically inaccurate, it's irresponsible social policy, and must be dropped from the regulation.
While failing to address just how the proposal wouldn't redefine abortion in his blog posting, entitled “Physician Conscience Blog 2,” the only thing it did succeed in was making it quite clear which side of the ideological divide he resides on:
“Is the fear here that so many doctors will refuse that it will somehow make it difficult for a woman to get an abortion? That hasn’t happened, but what if it did? Wouldn’t that be an important and legitimate social statement?”
Why, no, Mr. Leavitt. It wouldn't be. And, by the way, it's not your job to decide.
I'm actually more concerned after reading Leavitt's blog, because not only does he not address the actual definition in the proposal, he just skips past it onto the typical anti-choice talking points, leading me to suspect that redefining abortion is exactly part of the intention for this regulation. So, Leavitt, if you really want to be taken seriously about why we should all heave a collective sigh of relief, stop talking about your morally superior intentions to protect “physician conscience.” Start talking about the definitions that this ridiculous and unnecessary rule imposes on various forms of contraceptives. Start talking about how, exactly, this rule doesn't restrict a woman's access to birth control.
What's that? You won't? Then I demand you drop this regulation altogether. Why should we wait for you sneak in your backdoor attempt to restrict access to birth control into some poorly disguised regulation on “physician conscience”? To take this man's word that our fears aren't valid would be foolish: we must demand for this regulation to be dropped.
Join me in letting Secretary Mike know that we aren't not fooled by his blog post by signing Progressive Future's petition to HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt, demanding that he drop the much-maligned regulation.
