Oh God DHHS no.

[xenologer]

The Bush administration has officially proposed a rule to the Dept. of Health and Human Services that doctors can refuse to treat patients if their consciences protest for any reason. Basically if they dunwanna, you don't get medical care.

Send an email to consciencecomment@hhs.gov, with the subject line "provider conscience regulation." They are publishing these comments right now, because it is in a 30-day public comment period. This is an absolute emergency. Don't let the misogynist religious whackos be the only voices DHHS hears. Say something. Just send an email. Otherwise, after thirty days, this rule goes into effect.

Really. It does. This is going to happen. Please tell them you are NOT falling for this bullshit, and that you are NOT going to let fundamentalists speak for you.

Here's what I'm saying.

Doctors do and always have had the freedom of conscience to choose not to provide certain kinds of medical care. This is the choice they make in medical school when they're investing tens of thousands of dollars to become educated and licensed. If they are not ready to fulfill the obligations of their chosen profession, then just like anyone else who doesn't want to do their job? They shouldn't be doing it. Doctors need to provide patients with medical care. End of line.

Here's the problem. Doctors should not be the ones to decide which patients "deserve" the standard of care they are coming to receive. Those who say that this ruling is not about denying women access to birth control are either gullible or lying. Here's how I know it's about denying women health care.

One: This is clearly about allowing doctors to refuse to perform abortions for patients who request them. Considering that 87% of counties in America don't have an abortion provider, this puts rural women at a serious disadvantage when they need medical care. Why does this statistic matter? Because if the one doctor within reasonable range of a woman in need refuses to treat her, she may not be able to find another, particularly considering that this proposed rule does not include provisions for women who have been refused. Not only can her doctor say no, but he is not obligated to refer her to a physician willing to provide her with an abortion.

Two: This becomes truly scary when you think about the fact that DHHS wants to change the definition of "life" to "at fertilization" rather than "at implantation." These are both pretty damned arbitrary classifications considering that a fertilized egg is less of an independent organism than the gut flora living in my large intestine (and which I am allowed to slaughter at will with every antibiotic treatment I undergo). Why is this scary? See point three.

Three: Non-barrier methods (basically anything but a diaphragm or condom) works at least partly by preventing implantation. It prevents the fertilized egg from sticking to the inside of your uterus so that it never has a chance to start getting nourishment from your body. It's flushed out like any unfertilized egg, and your body does this on its own. What this means is that any non-barrier method that interferes with implantation will be classified as an abortion, giving doctors a perfect airtight legal excuse to deny women these prescriptions because a moral imperative the patient obviously does not share (or she wouldn't be asking for contraceptives) dictates that she doesn't need contraceptives after all.

If you are not ready to provide the services of a physician, don't become one. If it's against my religion to dance in public, I should not dream of Broadway. If I believe that rum is the devil's poison and that Prohibition should be re-established, I should not aspire to become a bartender. If it's against my conscience to provide medical advice or procedures to certain people or for certain reasons, I should not dream of a medical career.

Medicine is about service. You are doing a disservice to half the population of this country by codifying an appalling belief: that women's LIVES are not as important as the FEELINGS of doctors who should never have gone into that practice in the first place.

And yes, this is about a woman's life versus the feelings of her doctor. If a woman cannot control her reproduction, she cannot control any aspect of her life. If a woman cannot delay pregnancy she is at a serious disadvantage compared to a man when it comes to getting an education, maintaining a career, and supporting herself. If at any time she could be railroaded into halting her life to bear a child at someone else's will, then her life as she know it can end at any time.

Anyone reading this, I'm begging you to think about this. Think about what effect having a child really has on women. In third world countries early pregnancy and single motherhood are one of the chief reasons that women and their children are economically and socially the biggest victims of poverty, disease, and hunger. Do you want that here? Are you ready for those consequences? Because that's where we're going.

If you love even a single woman in your life--mother, sister, daughter, friend, lover, anything--please protect her. Say no to this. Treat them like human beings, with wills and lives of their own. Let the women you love control their reproduction, instead of breeding on someone else's timeline and by someone else's rules. You owe them that much.

Comments

My letter

[poptartodoom.livejournal.com]

To whom it may concern:

Please, please, do not let the religious right control a woman's right to her own body! As a woman, I have the right to make my own reproductive choices. What I want to do with my body is my business. I have the right to expect that my doctor, who spent a fortune to go through medical school, will give me the care I request. Allowing doctors to choose not to perform duties expected of their position is a huge disservice to the women of this country. 87% of counties in the United States don't have a single abortion provider, so if there is only one provider within a possible distance for a woman and he refuses, what choices does she have left? With so many women living at the poverty line and the rising cost of living, how are women supposed to be able to make ends meet if they are unable to control their own reproductive health?

The definition of life needs to remain "at implantation." "At fertilization" reclassifies all forms of contraception other than barrier methods into abortifacents. I can guarantee this change will result in the rights of more women than ever before being taken away by overzealous doctors who feel they are more qualified to make a woman's deeply personal reproductive decisions than the woman herself.

Please end this madness. It will deeply affect every woman you know in some way, be it from them needing birth control for any assortments of ailments that have nothing to do with reproduction, to a surprise or dangerous pregnancy that will result in the mother's death. Please do not allow doctors to opt out from providing the health care they are licensed to provide. Please do not allow the religious right to call the shots for the health care of the entire country.

Thank you.

[beldar.livejournal.com]

Will spread the world.

[praxian2007.livejournal.com]

Wow.

IMO this is about more than just womens rights, but I'll jump on any bandwagon that gets this stopped. With them jumping ship to say "I want to be able to say no to these people because they have no health care provider, but yes to these people because they are obviously rich and can pay their bill faster than them", is just scary too.

There's a lot of private hospitals up here now as it is, and it's scary to see that 80% of the "public" and/or "county" hospitals have taken to turning people away at the door rather than treating the problem.

This is something that tells me as well, that socialized medicine WOULD NOT be a bad thing - because at LEAST then the doctors don't have a choice - they HAVE to treat you because you have the right and it's backed by the country.

But again - I suppose we have to live in a country that cares more for it's people than the bottom line - which is looking to me more and more like we don't.

[e-mily.livejournal.com]

This is utterly terrifying.

Lengthy letters sent to my legislators, and to the HHS.

[matrexius.livejournal.com]

Ugh. Something that concerns me is: who makes the decision over whether this is instituted? I mean, have you read the DHHS release on this? It's dripping with partisanship.

[redwingheart.livejournal.com]

This sucks.

Also, I find any attack on my religion perfectly called for.