Bush Proposal Dresses Restricted Access to Reproductive Health Care in Anti-Discrimination Clothes
July 15, 2008
The New York Times has obtained a draft of a White House proposal to deny Federal funding to any hospital or health organization that refuses to hire a health care professional based on their personal moral objections to contraception or abortion.
NARAL sent out an alert via text message earlier this afternoon asking members to call the White House hotline and register their non-support for the proposed regulatory changes.
The Bush administration claims that the change is intended to keep people from being forced to perform abortions. But the real aim is much more subtle. It seeks to define abortion and the use of contraceptives as fundamentally different from other kinds of medical care.
Notice that they’re not advancing the idea that Christian Scientists — who believe that modern medicine interferes with God’s will — should not be discriminated against in hiring. Nor are they pressing the issue of non-discrimination against Jehovah’s Witness health care professionals who object to blood transfusions.
This proposal is not about protecting religious freedom. If it were, it would be much more audacious in its scope. The targeting of birth control and abortion alone reveals the real aim: to reduce women’s reproductive health care choices.
The fact is that religious traditions have different beliefs on the value of fetal life, including when human life begins. Like many religious leaders, I do not believe that a fertilized ovum, zygote, or embryo is “the life of a human being” as this new federal definition would provide. But more, I find it (excuse the wording) inconceivable that those who oppose abortion are now making headway to oppose birth control methods that prevent unplanned pregnancies, with the support of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Surely if there is common ground between those who are pro-choice and those who oppose abortion it is that we should support the widespread availability of all medically safe methods of contraception. This proposal demonstrates how hollow those calls for common ground might really be. Let’s see how quickly those who call for common ground on abortion to speak out into this latest attempt to control women’s moral agency and rights.
Debra: Thanks for your comments. It’s very important to call out that particular chimera repeatedly. Many opponents of abortion are simply trying to make women’s decisions for us rather than trusting us to act in our own best interests.