HHS Secretary Leavitt Posts Blog Entry Saying He Wants Draft Regulation To Be Rewritten

Main Category: Abortion
Article Date: 11 Aug 2008 - 5:00 PDT

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HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt in a Thursday entry in his professional blog said that he wants draft HHS regulations rewritten with a narrow focus on allowing health care workers to refuse to participate in procedures they find objectionable, the Wall Street Journal reports (Simon, Wall Street Journal, 8/8). According to the AP/Las Vegas Sun, federal law bars organizations from discriminating against providers who refuse to perform abortions. HHS is considering issuing a rule outlining compliance with the laws, which several lawmakers and advocacy groups have criticized as an attempt to include contraceptives in its definition of abortion (Freking, AP/Las Vegas Sun, 8/7). Leavitt said he asked for the regulations to be drafted after writing to the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in March about the groups' certification requirements, which Leavitt wrote "potentially violate a physician's right to choose whether he or she performs abortions."

He wrote that an "early draft of the regulations found its way into public circulation before it had reached my review," adding that the draft "contained words that lead some to conclude my intent is to deal with the subject of contraceptives, somehow defining them as abortion. Not true." Leavitt wrote, "The Bush administration has consistently supported the unborn. However, the issue I asked to be addressed in this regulation is not abortion or contraceptives, but the legal right medical practitioners have to practice according to their conscience, and patients should be able to choose a doctor who has beliefs like his or hers."

Leavitt said that HHS is "still contemplating if it will issue a regulation or not. If it does, it will be directly focused on the protection of practitioner conscience" (Fox, Reuters, 8/8). However, Leavitt did not say what he meant by "practitioner conscience" or the extent to which the protection would allow health care workers to deny services, CQ HealthBeat reports.

Mary Jane Gallagher, president of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, said Leavitt's blog entry seems to be an attempt to quell the controversy over the earlier draft by attempting to "get that contraceptive term off [HHS'] back" but has not done so. It is "really not acceptable to the people I represent that this administration is considering allowing doctors and nurses and pharmacists that have received their education to provide services to now be able to not provide those services if they don't want to," Gallagher said, adding, "Who's going to provide access to contraceptive services if the administration provides this large loophole to deny services?" (Reichard, CQ HealthBeat, 8/7).

The draft version of the rule defined 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." According to the draft, 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 -- using a definition of abortion that could include many forms of hormonal contraception and intrauterine devices. 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. The rule would affect more than 500,000 hospitals, clinics and medical facilities that receive federal funding (Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 8/6).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women's Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women's Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.

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