104 Reps. Send Letter Asking Bush To Halt Potential Rule That Could Limit Birth Control Access

Main Category: Sexual Health / STDs
Also Included In: Women's Health / Gynecology
Article Date: 24 Jul 2008 - 5:00 PDT

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One-hundred four House members on Monday sent a letter to President Bush calling on him to "halt all action" on a proposed regulation being developed by the Bush administration that allegedly seeks to allow medical providers to refuse patients access to commonly used contraceptive methods as a matter of conscience on the grounds that they are a form of abortion, ABC News reports. The letter says the draft regulation's "definitions are so broad as to go far beyond abortion politics and threaten virtually any law or policy designed to protect women's access to safe and effective birth control" (Jaffe, ABC News, 7/21).

Under the proposal, to receive funding under any program administered by HHS, researchers, clinics, medical schools and hospitals would have to sign "written certifications" that they will not discriminate against people who object to abortion -- however it might be defined. The certification also would be required of state and local governments when allocating grants to hospitals and other institutions that have policies against providing abortions (Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 7/21).

The "draft regulation could have a disastrous effect upon access to safe and effective birth control for millions of women across the country," the House members' letter says, adding, "It would allow any provider, who wants to deny a woman emergency contraception or even birth control pills, to claim protection based on a personal belief that such pills fit the regulatory definition."

According to ABC News, the White House has said it does not comment on "possible proposed rules." HHS in a statement has said, "Over the past three decades, Congress has passed several anti-discrimination laws to protect institutional and individual health care providers participating in federal programs. HHS has an obligation to enforce these laws and is exploring a number of options." The House letter says that the draft proposal would go "much further" than simply enforcing anti-discrimination laws that "were, in general, designed to shield different types of health care providers who did not wish to provide abortions."

The congressional letter states, "By distorting the scope of the laws," the proposed regulation "would gut state and local protections of women's right to safe and effective birth control. This is not a technical clarification regarding abortion services. This is a radical reversal of decades of public health work to provide contraception and family planning services that have enjoyed wide bipartisan support" (ABC News, 7/21).

U.S. News & World Report Examines Debate Over Proposed Regulation

U.S. News & World Report on Tuesday examined the question at the "core" of the debate: "Does a doctor's right to follow his or her conscience trump a patient's right to a full range of medical treatment?" According to U.S. News, supporters of the regulation believe in a stricter definition of conception, which would state that "[l]ife starts at fertilization." However, some advocates worry that "in protecting the rights of medical practitioners ... the law would trample on the rights of the patient," U.S. News reports.

According to U.S. News, a survey published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine found that a majority of physicians who object to a specific practice such as abortion "feel an obligation to present all the options and refer patients" to other doctors. However, 14% of the doctors surveyed said they did not think they needed to fully inform patients and nearly 30% said they did not think they had to make referrals.

Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said that if the regulation were enacted it "would mean that if a woman walked into a facility and her doctor didn't believe in birth control, she wouldn't get it and wouldn't even know that she's not being offered this option." She added that such treatment would be "the luck of the draw." In addition, the proposed rule is intended to nullify state laws that protect women's access to reproductive health services -- such as laws that require insurers to treat contraception like other prescriptions, and laws requiring hospitals to offer EC to rape survivors -- according to an analysis by the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association.

Deirdre McQuade, assistant director of policy and communications at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, said that EC is "clearly the destruction of a human being at (its) earliest stages of development," adding that physicians should be "allowed to practice medicine according to their values." McQuade said, "For many doctors, referring for a practice that one would not be willing to do oneself is still participating in that same practice." Rep. Dave Weldon (R-Fla.) said in a statement that extra enforcement is needed to protect the rights of health care workers (Kotz, U.S. News & World Report, 7/22).

Editorial

The Bush administration "has done a poor job of cloaking its latest end run around women's reproductive rights," but "[f]ortunately, Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) are on the case," a Seattle Times editorial says. According to the Times, administration officials say the proposed regulation concerns employment discrimination, but "it clearly is a ploy to limit women's access to reproductive health care."

The proposed rule is written "so broadly the restrictions would extend to oral contraceptives and EC," the editorial says, adding that programs that provide family planning services, such as Title X and Medicaid, "could be jeopardized." Clinton and Murray "note such a rule change could even deny access to EC to [survivors] of sexual assault in hospital emergency rooms," the editorial says, concluding that in the "waning days" of the administration, President Bush "should take a break from weakening women's reproductive health rights" (Seattle Times, 7/23).

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