Blogs Comment On Hyde Amendment, Faith-Based Pharmacy, Colorado Ballot Measure

Main Category: Women's Health / Gynecology
Also Included In: Sexual Health / STDs;  Pharmacy / Pharmacist;  Abortion
Article Date: 27 Oct 2008 - 1:00 PST

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The following is a summary of selected women's health-related blog entries.

~ "At a Pharmacy it's Divine to Decline," Cristina Page, Birth Control Watch:
Page lists several "problems" with this week's opening of Divine Mercy Care Pharmacy, a faith-based pharmacy in Virginia that does not provide contraception of any kind. She says that Divine Mercy Care's Web site is "not so up-front," listing its policy on contraception low on a list titled "What Sets Us Apart." Page writes that the pharmacy's claim on the site that it is a not-for-profit with prices that "are fair, low and competitive" and that it "strives to serve the insured, underinsured and those without insurance'" shows that "the pharmacy is targeting the uninsured and uneducated," who are the "least likely to have the knowledge and resources to say, 'I know that I need the morning-after pill immediately, and that it's within my rights to have access to it.'" She adds that such individuals "will be the most vulnerable to a pharmacist who tells them that their only option is to trust in God's design." Page concludes, "If one pharmacy can be anti-contraception, all pharmacies can become anti-contraception, and in certain regions, if they can, they will. This is a situation where the federal government needs to step in and require pharmacies to provide contraception. Instead, they've done the exact opposite" (Page, Birth Control Watch, 10/22).

~ "Hyde Amendment Robs Women of Reproductive Choice," Emily Douglas, RH Reality Check: Even if Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) is elected president, overturning the Hyde Amendment will "be an uphill battle," Douglas writes in blog entry. The current version of the Hyde Amendment -- which Obama opposes -- outlaws federal funding for abortion except in cases of rape, incest and endangerment of a woman's life and "all but invalidated [Roe v. Wade] for low-income women" by cutting off coverage through Medicaid, Indian Health Services, the military insurance program and other government health programs, Douglas writes. "While many anti-choice activists credit Hyde for protecting their tax dollars from supporting a procedure they find morally repugnant, Hyde's impact, in fact, is far less neat, and it is hardly confined to the realm of moral judgment," according to Douglas. She says that the lack of Medicaid coverage for abortions has been shown to lead to abortions later in pregnancy and notes the disproportionate impact on low-income women. In making this point Douglas quotes the late Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), the amendment's sponsor, who said, "I certainly would like to prevent, if I could legally, anybody from having an abortion," ...but "the only vehicle available is the...Medicaid bill." She concludes by noting that although there has been work by abortion-rights advocates to "put progressive legislation that would expand abortion access on the national stage, it's unlikely that poor women's reproductive health care will find congressional sponsors ready to take on the fight" (Douglas, RH Reality Check, 10/22).

~ "The Extremists Behind Amendment 48," Cristina Page, Birth Control Watch: Colorado's proposed Amendment 48 -- a ballot initiative that would redefine "person" in the state constitution to include a fertilized egg -- "targets far more" than just Roe. v Wade, according to Page, who writes that "even those opposed to legal abortion ... have good reason to reject the proposal." She writes that defining a fertilized egg as a person would establish "the legal groundwork to outlaw" in vitro fertilization, add "the most commonly used forms of birth control alongside abortion to the list of banned procedures" and allow the state to "intervene in a woman's life, even a woman with cancer, and deny her life-saving medical treatment if it could endanger a fertilized egg." She continues, "Access to birth control options, including emergency birth control, is the only proven way to reduce unintended pregnancy and abortion rates. That's why even 80% of self-described 'pro-life' Americans support access to contraception." Page concludes, "For women to achieve equality, they must have access to birth control. We need to respect people's ability to make their own life decisions and not impose our values and views upon others" (Page, Birth Control Watch, 10/23).

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