Bush Administration's Efforts To Enact HHS Conscience Regulation Comes As 'No Surprise,' Editorial Says

Main Category: Abortion
Also Included In: Women's Health / Gynecology;  Sexual Health / STDs
Article Date: 27 Nov 2008 - 7:00 PST

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President Bush has "never paid much attention to public opinion. Or legal opinion. Or expert opinion. Or scientific opinion," a Eugene Register-Guard editorial says. It therefore is "no surprise" that Bush is "plowing full speed ahead" with a proposed HHS conscience rule -- "an eleventh-hour scheme to grant sweeping new protections to health care providers who oppose abortion and other procedures on religious or moral grounds" -- according to the editorial.

Bush is not "bothered by the chorus of pleas for him to reconsider" the rule, or by the "profound alarms being raised by health care professionals and advocates for women's health," according to the editorial. It adds that women "stand to lose a great deal" from the rule, even if President-elect Barack Obama immediately reverses the "unnecessary regulation." Current conscience laws in 46 states "weren't enough" for the Bush administration, "which has been particularly aggressive in its efforts to obstruct access to abortion and emergency contraception," the editorial writes. It notes, "More than half a million federally funded institutions -- including 89% of all hospitals -- would be affected by the regulation" and that the "regulation's language is so expansive that it could allow health care providers to refuse to test a patient for HIV or to offer fertility treatments to same-sex couples." The editorial concludes, "The tragic failings of the U.S. health care system to serve tens of millions of Americans ought to offend the conscience of every health care professional. The last thing the federal government should be doing right now is spending energy on expanding reasons to deny care to anyone" (Eugene Register-Guard, 11/24).

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