The NY Times yesterday had a great op-ed co-authored by Hillary Clinton and Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood.  Apparently there is a new proposed rule from the Department of Health and Human Services that would severely impact family planning and reproductive choice, and sadly, not in a good way.  Sigh.

Under the guise of "religious liberty" and "freedom of conscience" HSS aims to "protect" those health care professionals that object to providing certain medical treatment by forcing any health care entity that receives federal funding to certify in writing that none of its employees, or volunteers, are required to assist in any way with medical services they find objectionable .  That's right folks.  If passed, this new rule would require employers to certify that they won't force their employees to, you know, do their jobs.

Meanwhile, as the article points out, where's the protection for the patients, women "who look to their health care providers as an unbiased source of medical information, [and] might not even know they were being deprived of advice about their options or denied access to care[?]" 

The good news, sorta, is that there is a 30-day comment period on the proposed rule which is open to the public, but it closes on September 29 , so write in now (you can do this by e-mail!) and prevent this bullshit rule from getting passed! 

Instructions for commenting and the actual proposed rule are here.

If you want to read the awesome op-ed.

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September 21, 2008 12:19 PM

[0+]  spike the cat said:

Thanks for posting this. I'm on it.

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