Reactions to story from RHRealityCheck.org | Reproductive Health Information, News, Commentary and Community

• 

  Bush Admin takes further steps to erode Womens' Rights

  http://desertbeacon.blogspot.com/2008/08/bush-admin-takes-fu...
  124 days ago in Desert Beacon · Authority: 16

  If it wasn't enough for Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Mike Leavitt to have appointed Dr. Eric Keroack as the Deputy Asst Secretary for Population Affairs which oversees Title X, now he's taken it upon himself to interject his personal religious beliefs to redefine "abortion" in an attempt to deny contraception to women and make it the law of the land. Dr. Keroack believes that the use of birth control is 'degrading to women,' and wrongly defines birth control as 'abortifacients.' [WP] He also believes that premarital sex damages the female brain, making non-abstinent women incapable of forming emotional bonds. [Raw Story] Yet, this is the man who Secretary Leavitt recommended to President Bush to oversee the nation's family planning grants as well as oversee programs related to women's health (e.g., cervical and breast cancer screening). Hello?!?!?! Dr. Keroack may have resigned from the HHS on March 29, 2007, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out who probably helped Secretary Leavitt draft his proposed regulation. The draft could still be revised or rejected. Or ... the administration could enact it at any point; no congressional approval would be needed. While the next elected President could overturn the regulation, if he's so disposed, it's not something I personally would like to see put in place in the first place. Here's what others are saying about the draft regulation:From the Chicago Tribune: HHS proposal fuels birth-control debate ... "(HHS) is reviewing a draft regulation that would deny federal funding to any hospital, clinic, health plan or other entity that does not accommodate employees who want to opt out of participating in care that runs counter to their personal convictions, including providing birth-control pills, intrauterine devices and the Plan B emergency contraceptive." From the Wall Street Journal: Treating the Pill as Abortion, Draft Regulation Stirs Debate ... "The draft also extends the conscience objection to most staff members and volunteers working for health-care providers. So, for instance, an employer couldn't punish a clinic receptionist for refusing to make appointments for patients seeking birth-control pills." From Clarksville Online (Clarksville, TN): Proposed HHS regulation could impact accessibility to birth control ... “One of the most troubling aspects of the proposed rules is the overly-broad definition of “abortion.” This definition would allow health-care corporations or individuals to classify many common forms of contraception – including the birth control pill, emergency contraception and IUDs – “abortions” and therefore to refuse to provide contraception to women who need it.” - Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Patty Murray in a joint letter to HHS From Reproductive Health Reality Check: HHS Moves to Define Contraception as Abortion ... "Up until now, the federal government followed the definition of pregnancy accepted by the American Medical Association and our nation's pregnancy experts, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which is: pregnancy begins at implantation. With this proposal, however, HHS is dismissing medical experts and opting instead to accept a definition of pregnancy based on polling data." From Medical News Today: Washington Post, WSJ Examine Reaction to Draft HHS Rule that could limit Birth Control Access ... "Susan Wood, a professor at George Washington University, who resigned from FDA over the agency's handling of emergency contraception, said that the proposed rule is "another example of this administration's disregard for science and medicine in how agencies make decisions."" From ThinkProgress.org: OB/GYNs With Objections To Abortion Should Not Have To Refer Patients To Other Doctors ... "HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt wrote a letter to the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ABOG), stating that providers with moral objections to abortion should have no obligation to refer patients." From Reproductive Health Reality Check: Title X in Jeopardy from Anti-Abortion, er, Anti-Contraception Groups ... "The Family Research Council, backed by an unknown group of 80 anti-contraception groups, has sent a letter to President Bush urging him to make federal funding for family planning centers - Title X funding - more restrictive." If you'd like to personally express your disdain of this proposed regulation, here's the contact information for the HHS: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 200 Independence Avenue, S.W. Washington, D.C. 20201 Telephone: 1-202-619-0257 Toll Free: 1-877-696-6775 Cross-posted from RockSpot
• 

  The Hysteria Overload These Days Is Killing Me….

  http://swfreedomlover.wordpress.com/2008/07/29/the-hysteria-...
  128 days ago in WHAT IS GOING ON? · Authority: 8

  Is it just my imagination or is the hysteria/fear mongering on the rise lately? It seems everyday there is a new threat of something or other. I’m about ready to just chuck it all in and head for the hills somewhere to remove myself from the madness. I mean everything today seems to be an epidemic, pandemic, disaster, catastrophe, end of the world as we know it. It’s tiring. My brain can only handle so much trauma before it wants to go into overload and explode. Not to make light of this at all, if there’s one thing the “war on smokers” has taught me is that people with an agenda are sneaky as all hell. Give them inch they’ll come back for your life. I mean everything today seems to be an epidemic, pandemic, disaster, catastrophe, end of the world as we know it. It’s tiring. My brain can only handle so much trauma before it wants to go into overload and explode. I saw a piece about a week or so ago on the Huffington Post, and then got busy and forgot about it. Cristina Page HHS Moves to Define Contraception as Abortion Posted July 15, 2008 | 02:24 PM (EST) In a spectacular act of complicity with the religious right, the Department of Health and Human Services Monday released a proposal that allows any federal grant recipient to obstruct a woman’s access to contraception. In order to do this, the Department is attempting to redefine many forms of contraception, the birth control 40% of Americans use, as abortion. Doing so protects extremists under the Weldon and Church amendments. Those laws prohibit federal grant recipients from requiring employees to help provide or refer for abortion services. In the “Definitions” section of the HHS proposal it states, “Abortion: An abortion is the termination of a pregnancy. There are two commonly held views on the question of when a pregnancy begins. Some consider a pregnancy to begin at conception (that is, the fertilization of the egg by the sperm), while others consider it to begin with implantation (when the embryo implants in the lining of the uterus). A 2001 Zogby International American Values poll revealed that 49% of Americans believe that human life begins at conception. Presumably many who hold this belief think that any action that destroys human life after conception is the termination of a pregnancy, and so would be included in their definition of the term “abortion.” Those who believe pregnancy begins at implantation believe the term “abortion” only includes the destruction of a human being after it has implanted in the lining of the uterus.” Then today I read an article on Common Dreams. The Common Dreams headline from Truth Dig wasn’t quite as shocking, but reading the articles one gets the impression that the government is about to ban birth control. They’re not………..at least just not yet. Published on Tuesday, July 29, 2008 by TruthDig.com A Parting Gift to the Religious Right by Marie Cocco From the people who brought you the Terri Schiavo spectacle, the stem-cell research stalemate and the atrocious waste of tax money on abstinence-only sex education that has been shown not to work, comes a sequel: a proposal to redefine abortion to include some of the most common forms of birth control, and to potentially penalize with funding cuts hundreds of thousands of doctors, hospitals and other health care providers who expect their employees to give women full reproductive care. This parting gift to the religious right comes in a proposed rule by the Health and Human Services Department, which says it is merely revising existing federal rules that allow health-care personnel to opt out of performing an abortion if they have a moral or religious objection to the procedure. From that minimalist and unobjectionable clause, a monster grows. The draft regulation would redefine abortion to include “any of the various procedures — including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action — that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation.” That led me to do a search on “abortion redifined” which brought up 287,000 results. Most of what I found were blogs discussing it. But this headline is what first got a reaction out of me……………. Contraception Is the New Abortion The Latest Right Wing Trend? Attack Birth Control SOURCE: iStockphoto A proposed HHS rule would alter the meaning of the word “abortion.” If implemented, our best tools for preventing the need for abortion would suddenly be redefined as abortion. By Jessica Arons | Monday, July 28th, 2008 | The Bush administration has taken its latest swipe at contraception, but again under the pretense of opposing abortion. By manipulating scientific facts, the Department of Health and Human Services hopes to enshrine in federal law a conservative, ideological interpretation of pregnancy that has the potential to significantly limit women’s access to contraception. In 2004, Congress passed a budget rider commonly known as the “Weldon Amendment,” named after its sponsor, Rep. Dave Weldon (R-FL). This provision prohibits recipients of federal funds from “discriminating” against individuals or institutions who, due to reasons of conscience, refuse to provide abortion services, coverage, counseling, or referrals, even in an emergency. Although the Weldon Amendment already places substantial obstacles in the way of women seeking reproductive health services, the Bush administration did not want to stop with abortion. In an eleventh-hour gift to radical right organizations, who have been pressuring the administration to cut family planning funding, HHS has proposed a regulation implementing the Weldon Amendment that would vastly expand its scope. So while I find this headline to be premature in hysteria over nothing……..yet, it could in fact turn into something and in the near future no less. Nothing wrong with foresight and warning……….but geeeze, do we really need to instill panic to do so? Or is this country, if not the world, really in such a state that the average person is basically under attack from all sides, and especially from our/their own government? It’s enough to drive whatever almight diety you prefer to booze and drugs just to escape the madness! Being on the receiving end of the “war on smokers”, I can actually see the points being made here. Especially since we are talking about the Religious Right. They’d love nothing more than to see us females thrown back into the dark ages………hell, they’d probably bring back the “burning times” (witch hunts) if they thought they could get away with it. So I don’t find it too much of a stretch of the imagination to take this to the next step these ‘holier-than-though’ folks would like to go: The proposed rule defines abortion as the termination of pregnancy from the point of conception: “the Department proposes to define abortion as ‘any of the various procedures—including the prescription and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action—that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation.’” The upshot of this revised definition is that any form of contraception that may interfere with the implantation of a fertilized egg could be categorized as a form of abortion. This means that any health care entity or provider, on the grounds of their opposition to abortion, could refuse to provide women with access to 40 percent of the most commonly used methods of birth control in the United States—the pill, the IUD, emergency contraception, the patch, the shot, and the ring. In other words, our best tools for preventing the need for abortion would suddenly be redefined as abortion. So while I do think the headline is a bit over the top, I can’t say I disagree with it. Yes, I can indeed see them claiming that birth control IS the same as abortion, as when I was reading the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) draft, THAT is exactly what I got from it, even though it didn’t say that. The rule itself talks about protecting those in the medical field and pharmacists from job discrimination because they are morally appalled with the idea of having anything to do with abortion, including filling a woman’s prescription for the “morning after” pill, or sterilization. It is to guarantee their right to hold to their beliefs even on the job, while not doing their job. Nice to be protected from not doing the thing you are trained to do all in the name of your “right to your belief”; but I notice they have no problem forcing their belief on the customer who may just need that prescription and that’s the only pharmacy in town. Now my first thought is then these people shouldn’t be working in the field. But then I realize that I can’t be free to practice my beliefs if they aren’t. But this leaves a dilemma. Should these doctors and pharmacists not wish to contribute or help a woman in this manner, that’s all fine and good; but apparently they are also not wanting to counsel the woman as to where they can go or even make a referral. In terms of pharmacists, then I think the pharmacy has an obligation to make sure there is always another pharmacist on hand to fill the woman’s prescriptions. After all, the customer has just as much right to have their prescription filled as the holier-than-thou pharmacist has to refuse to fill it on religious grounds. And what about these really Religious Zealots who actually believe the birth control itself is a sin? This could in fact lead to the hysterics the headlines are already screaming about being true. Understand that this rule has NO bearing on me whatsoever as I had a complete hysterectomy 20 years ago (which technically given the definitions in this rule could also constitute sterilization and it wouldn’t matter to them that I was in severe pain otherwise). I am still horrified by the prospect. The day they legislate the male penis is the day they can THINK about trying to tell me what I can do with my body. The day they start really holding the men fathering these kids responsible is the day they THINK about trying to legislate what I can and cannot do with my own body. The day all these pro-lifers start taking care of all the unwanted children, helping the single mother feed, clothe and raise that child, and put them through college, is the day they can TRY to think about dictating what I can and cannot do with my own body. Ever notice how “pro-lifers” are only ever concerned with the fetus? You never hear them bitching about all the innocents killed in wars. You never hear them bragging about how they care for all the orphans and poor children whose fathers ran out on them. No, they ONLY want to force a woman to have the child, even IF that child is the result of incest or rape. Now THAT’s twisted logic if ever there was any. And don’t think I missed how it is ONLY females who will affected by this. You notice they never complain about Viagra prescriptions or condoms. Quoting Captain Kirk on Star Trek: “Scotty, beam me up”
• 

  Another example of ignoring the mission

  http://leisureguy.wordpress.com/2008/05/22/another-example-o...
  196 days ago in Later On · Authority: 88

  In this case the mission was ignored because of ideology. The GOP really does a poor job of running the government effectively and for the legislated goals. Again, from ThinkProgress: Last October, President Bush appointed Susan Orr to oversee federal family planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Orr, who previously directed HHS child welfare programs, was touted by the administration as “highly qualified.” But after less than a year on the job, Orr has resigned. From a statement by the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association (via RH Reality Check): We are certainly relieved that a known opponent of access to contraception like Dr. Susan Orr is resigning from her position as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs (DASPA), the position which oversees the only dedicated federal program for family planning services for low-income and uninsured people. ThinkProgress spoke to HHS spokeswoman Jennifer Koentop today, who confirmed that Orr has stepped down. From the beginning, Orr was controversial, with her strongest credentials seemingly being her support for failed abstinence-only policies. Lawmakers immediately wrote to HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt and urged him to reconsider the appointment. Before joining HHS, Orr served as senior director for marriage and family care at the conservative Family Research Council (FRC) and was an adjunct professor at Pat Robertson’s Regent University. A look at her past record: – In a 2001, Orr embraced a Bush administration proposal to “stop requiring all health insurance plans for federal employees” to cover a broad range of birth control. “We’re quite pleased, because fertility is not a disease,” said Orr. – In a 2000 Weekly Standard article, Orr railed against requiring health insurance plans to cover contraceptives. “It’s not about choice,” said Orr. “It’s not about health care. It’s about making everyone collaborators with the culture of death.” – Orr authored a paper in 2000 titled, “Real Women Stay Married.” In it she wrote that women should “think about focusing our eyes, not upon ourselves, but upon the families we form through marriage.” More recently, Orr’s former employer, FRC, has been pressuring the Bush administration to restrict federal funding for family planning centers. Conveniently, Orr oversaw this funding. It’s very strange to me how often Bush appointed to head agencies people who were strongly opposed to the mission of those agencies and thus who worked actively to keep the agency from doing its job. This is not the way Democrats do it.
• 

  Bush Family Planning Appointee Who Called Contraceptives Part Of The ‘Culture Of Death’ Resigns

  http://politics.nuovoportale.com/bush-family-planning-appoin...
  197 days ago in News portal: politics best aggregator of the net · Authority: 12

  Last October, President Bush appointed Susan Orr to oversee federal family planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Orr, who previously directed HHS child welfare programs, was touted by the administration as “highly qualified.” But after less than a year on the job, Orr has resigned. From a statement by the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association (via RH Reality Check): We are certainly relieved that a known opponent of access to contraception like Dr. Susan Orr is resigning from her position as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs (DASPA), the position which oversees the only dedicated federal program for family planning services for low-income and uninsured people. ThinkProgress spoke to HHS spokeswoman Jennifer Koentop today, who confirmed that Orr has stepped down. From the beginning, Orr was controversial, with her strongest credentials seemingly being her support for failed abstinence-only policies. Lawmakers immediately wrote to HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt and urged him to reconsider the appointment. Before joining HHS, Orr served as senior director for marriage and family care at the conservative Family Research Council (FRC) and was an adjunct professor at Pat Robertson’s Regent University. A look at her past record: – In a 2001, Orr embraced a Bush administration proposal to “stop requiring all health insurance plans for federal employees” to cover a broad range of birth control. “We’re quite pleased, because fertility is not a disease,” said Orr. – In a 2000 Weekly Standard article, Orr railed against requiring health insurance plans to cover contraceptives. “It’s not about choice,” said Orr. “It’s not about health care. It’s about making everyone collaborators with the culture of death.” – Orr authored a paper in 2000 titled, “Real Women Stay Married.” In it she wrote that women should “think about focusing our eyes, not upon ourselves, but upon the families we form through marriage.” More recently, Orr’s former employer, FRC, has been pressuring the Bush administration to restrict federal funding for family planning centers. Conveniently, Orr oversaw this funding.
• 

  Title X In Jeopary

  http://mcccprochoice.org/blog/?p=145
  200 days ago in McHenry County Citizens For Choice · Authority: 1

  Amie Newman follows up on a post earlier in the week with news on the anti-contraception battle to destroy Title X: “These desperate attempts are about ensuring that women and families live according to the agenda and under the will of terrified extremists. It’s not about abortion or contraception, sex or sexuality. It’s about fear. Fear that a society that allows for free will and encourages personal responsibility coupled with a healthy dose of “love and watch out for thy brother and sister” ultimately brings about justice and equality. And with justice and equality comes freedom - we wouldn’t want people to think and behave freely would we?” Read the article in its entirety at RHRealityCheck.org.

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