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Warning, I am pissed off and use language to reflect that. It's a rant, but a fact-based rant. One note, I am not referring to Christian conservatives who do not think their values are more important than a woman's right to contraception.
It's amazing how timely the questions I asked BlogHer to ask Obama and McCain campaign representatives during a special session were (questions that were not asked by the way). Here are the questions I submitted to BlogHer:
- I want a straight answer about whether they feel contraception is a health care right of women?
- How should the right to patient care be balanced with the right to refuse care?
- Do they know the rate of contraception use among sexually active women? (90%)
- What is the difference between the so called "morning after pill"
and the so called "abortion pill?" What is their stance on sex
education in public schools?
Am I psychic or what? It's like I knew about the religious right
bullshit coming down from the Bush Administration before it even
happened--their parting salvo to the women of America if you will. In
fact, I'm just going to quit mincing words and call the legislation
presented by Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt what it
is--a big "fuck you" to the women of America and the men who love them.
If Leavitt and the rest of the Bush Administration get their way, women
will have have no idea whether or not they can get birth control from
their medical provider without asking. Not only that, but the proposed
legislation would overrule state laws which require employers to offer
contraception along with other prescriptions as well as state laws that
require hospitals to offer emergency contraception to rape victims.
From US News:
It would prohibit federally funded medical
facilities—including teaching hospitals and Planned Parenthood
clinics—from refusing to hire doctors who don't want to dispense birth
control pills and other types of contraception that may cause the
expulsion of a fertilized egg. (It's already illegal to discriminate
against doctors who refuse to perform abortions.)
The excuse Leavitt and Florida Representative Dave Weldon, a
supporter of the legislation, give for throwing up additional obstacles
to access to contraception is to protect and expand the "conscientious
refusal" rights of health care providers. No one is fooled by their
feigned concern for the rights of health care professionals--their goal
is to redefine contraception in medical and legislative terms so that
access to it becomes more difficult and more unfertilized eggs are
saved. So logical! By putting the rights of health care providers
BEFORE their patients, a practice that seems to violate the ethical
oaths most health care providers take upon entering their profession,
the government is telling women, that once again, their rights to
control their own bodies is secondary to the rights of others.
Why on earth do some people think unfertilized eggs inherently have
more rights than than the women who produce them? Explain the logic to
me? And men, why are you not outraged as well? Now your sexual partner
is at the mercy of the values of her health care providers. Her first
question to a new doctor will have to be "Do you prescribe
contraception?" Actually, many of us already have to do that. If you
live in Reno and are insured through St. Mary's, your employer is
required to provide an alternate prescription plan for contraception
because they refuse to cover it. This legislation would put an end to
that. Men will still get their Viagra because impotence is a medical
problem--continual pregnancy is just a biological reality. Nevada's
decimated state social services should cope with the thousands of
additional babies born because womens' access to birth control was FURTHER restricted very well, and that's just what will happen locally.
One thing I know for sure--this is another war the Bush
Administration will lose. Women are voting Republicans who have and
continue to trample on their health care rights out of office. Oh, the
times, they are a changing, and I can't wait to send this bunch out of
office with their hands covering their crotches (and that goes for the women politicians too).
Secretary Leavitt's proposed legislation goes against the opinion of
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG)
Committee Opinion as read here: "The Limits of Conscientious Refusal in Reproductive Health." You can read
Secretary Michael Leavitt's response to the ACOG here.
