HHS Publishes a Terrible Anti-Choice Regulation
By Kay Steiger - Dec 18th, 2008 at 11:58 am
The Health and Human Services department, in their last-ditch effort to screw women over, has published a final version of the rule (that I’ve written about before) that would “protect” not just doctors and nurses but entire institutions from providing abortions if they have a broad and ill-defined “moral objection.” The HHS is spearheaded Michael Leavitt, a leader against women’s health and rights on a number of issues.
Emily Douglas over at RH Reality Check has a good assesment of the battle over the regulation — the HHS received more than 200,000 letters opposing the regulation during the comment period. She also notes that there is an option for congressional action before the regulation is set in stone:
The rule must now be submitted to both the Government Accountability Office and both houses of Congress. Congress has a period of time to review the rule (and because of the timing of the rule’s publication, this period will stretch into the 111th Congress), during which time a motion to disprove can be introduced. If the motion to disprove is passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the President, the rule cannot be enforced or defended in court. If this avenue fails, Congress could refuse to appropriate funds for implementation of the rule, or Congress could pass the legislation introduced by Sens. Hillary Clinton and Patty Murray that would prohibit HHS from implementing the regulation.
There is a small sliver of silver lining, though. One of the more egregious parts of the originally proposed rule was that it broadly defined abortion to possibly include contraception. The final version of the rule however, has this to say:
After the full consideration of comments on this issue, the Department declines to add a definition of abortion to the rule. As indicated by the comments, such questions over the nature of abortion and the ending of a life are highly controversial and strongly debated.
Um, duh. I guess we should be relieved that even though the regulation is really horrible, it doesn’t allow a provider to find a moral objection (i.e. slut shaming) to a request for access to birth control. Somehow, the ability to not have your birth control taken away is a really big victory in 2008. In the meantime, people should pressure their Congressman or Congresswoman to motion to disprove the regulation.
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