The Political Voices of Women

What would you do if your method of birth control (ie: pills, IUD’s), were deemed to be an abortion and no longer available to you?

This is a reproductive rights story that has been covered by bloggers for several weeks now. And, as shocking and crazy as it sounds, it just may become a reality before the end of the Bush administration. If this policy is implemented, it will not be a simple thing to correct, even with a new administration.

On his blog today, Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt, has attempted to defend his position of redefining contraception as abortion. In his dishonest attempt to clarify this position, he blatantly ignores the main aspect concerning contraception, while also blurring the lines between medical ethics and ideology. Below is an example.

Michael Leavitt…

I want to reiterate. If the Department of Health and Human Services issues a regulation on this matter, it will aim at one thing, protecting the right of conscience of those who practice medicine. From what I’ve read the last few days, there’s a serious need for it.
[read full post by Michael Leavitt here]

Here is video of Hillary Clinton speaking at a Planned Parenthood conference on this serious issue…

From The Huston Chronicle – Redefining Abortion…

The Bush administration has consistently opposed providing funding for international birth control programs, but until now has not tried to limit the use of contraceptives inside the United States. That could change in the president’s final months in office. Health and Human Services officials are considering a draft regulation that would classify most birth control pills, the Plan B emergency contraceptive and intrauterine devices as forms of abortion because they prevent the development of fertilized eggs into fetuses.

The rule, which does not require congressional approval, would allow health care workers who object to abortion on moral or religious grounds to refuse to counsel women on their birth control options or supply contraceptives. It would forbid more than half a million health agencies nationwide that receive federal funds from requiring employees to provide such services. Pharmacists could use the rule as a justification for refusing to fill birth control prescriptions, and insurance companies could cite it as a basis for declining to cover the costs.An existing regulation allows health care providers with objections to abortion to abstain from providing it to patients. By extending the definition of abortion to cover contraceptives, federal officials are attempting to create by administrative fiat what would fail by a wide margin in Congress.

This is the Chicago Tribune…

As it becomes more accepted for health-care workers to inflict their moral judgments on patients, and customers, the burden shifts onto women seeking care. Instead of asking, “What gives the pharmacist the right to refuse to fill her prescription?” and “Why should a birth-control clinic be forced to employ a nurse who won’t give out the pill?” the question becomes “Why can’t she go to another drugstore or come back to the clinic another day”?

As blogger Amanda Marcotte argues, anti-choicers know they can’t ban contraception, but they can redefine it as a lifestyle drug, a luxury. Amazingly, pundit Bill O’Reilly is not the only person who thinks health insurance plans should pay for Viagra but not for the pill. If you can’t afford birth control, just don’t have sex, you hussy! The next administration may not find it so easy to turn this mind-set around, and if John McCain wins the White House, I doubt it will even try. McCain has a long-standing record of votes against abortion and birth control—125 out of 130 votes in Congress and the Senate.

Another dangerous feature of the proposed rules is that they redefine contraception as abortion. Standard medical authorities define abortion as something that takes place after you become pregnant, that is, after a fertilized egg implants in your womb and sets off a cascade of physical changes in your body. The Health and Human Services draft changes all that. It defines abortion as “any procedures, including prescription drugs, that result in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation.” According to these rules, you can have an “abortion” without even being pregnant. These are the knots we get tied up in when religious ideology replaces sound science.

This is from Scott at RH Reality Check…

Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt acknowledges in his second blog post on the issue, that traffic has increased on his blog as people respond with concerns to the HHS proposal that redefines contraception as abortion.

. . .

In his second blog on the issue, posted yesterday, the word contraception doesn’t even appear. As is often the case with anti-choice politicians, Leavitt only wants to talk about abortion to stir people’s emotions. Leavitt quotes Mary Jane Gallagher, President of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, writing:

So, according to Ms. Gallagher’s ideology, if a person goes to medical school they lose their right of conscience. Freedom of expression and action is surrendered with the issuance of a medical degree.

No Secretary Leavitt, what Ms. Gallagher was talking about was medical ethics, not ideology.

[read the full post at RH Reality Check]

Here is an excerpt from Suzanne Reisman’s post on Contraceptives and IUD’s

It doesn’t matter why you take the Pill. Someone has the right to deny you your medicine based on his or her own personal moral code. Freedom of religion? Nah, not when my religion disagrees with the pharmacist’s. Right to privacy? Women have no rights when it comes to reproduction. Our uteruses are the nation’s uterus, and if we are stupid enough to not buy into a particular frame of religious thinking that not even all religious leaders agree on (see my friends at the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice), then by God, we will be forced to comply, no matter what the cost.

Also See:

Bush Administration Launches Another Unwinnable War Against Contraception

Gloria Feldt at BlogHer

HHS New Rules Document Proposed Religious Tenets Basis Health Care For Women

Are you a woman that is using birth control? What would you do, if it was suddenly unavailable to you?

Let me know what you think about the idea of calling birth control and abortion. Do you agree or disagree? Let me know in comments.