HHS: Stopping Birth Control on Demand
Testifying at a legislative hearing on Wisconsin’s road to becoming one of 16 states that require hospitals to provide emergency contraception (EC) to rape victims, an emergency room physician demonstrated that moral convictions can be strong, but irrational.
At the hearing, legislators on all sides agreed that without a pregnancy there could not be an abortion. So they pressed the ER physician hard on one central question: “We’re not talking about when life begins, Doctor, we’re asking when a pregnancy begins. Is a fertilized egg in a Petrie dish a pregnancy or not?”
As the legislators pressed him, the inconsistencies inherent in declaring an isolated egg outside the womb to be a pregnancy overwhelmed him. His confusion resulted in a nonsensical answer that stunned the audience, pro-choice and pro-life, into an awkward silence: “Well,” the physician said, “clearly she was a mother before she was pregnant.”
Rape victims spent hours that day describing how important it was to have received (EC) to prevent an unwanted pregnancy caused by their attackers. They were tears-of-anger-outraged that any physician, especially an emergency room physician, would deny them protection from a pregnancy that would psychologically be a second assault with life-long consequences.
Ultimately the Wisconsin legislature overrode the doctor’s moral objections and passed a bill requiring hospitals to provide EC to rape victims — but the struggle to win this human right to basic health care is far from over.
A few weeks ago and long after Wisconsin’s EC in the ER bill was signed into law, a young woman called the statewide EC hotline. She said that she was raped and that she went to a hospital emergency room to get EC. The attending physician refused because she did not want to report the rape to law enforcement authorities.
Using the hotline staff, she was able to get EC immediately from a local women’s shelter, but she did not report either crime to the authorities. The next rape victim who comes to that hospital may encounter the same physician . . . or another employee who will refuse to help.
Now, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Leavitt has proposed regulations that would guarantee civil rights protections to the physicians, pharmacists, nurses, and receptionists who refuse to provide birth control or other care they morally object to. Throwing the balance of power even more heavily against the victims of rape, Secretary Leavitt and the Bush administration are weighing in on the side of caregivers who refuse to give it.
The HHS comment period on these regulations ends September 20th and shortly thereafter, HHS is expected to implement protections for health workers who object to birth control because of its potential to prevent maybe-babies. The nonsense deserves the same degree of respect that it received in that hearing room in Wisconsin when the emergency room physician declared women to be “mothers before they are pregnant.” But please do not be stunned into silence. Contact your representatives and ask them to stand for reason and compassion in health care by opposing these regulations.
