Op-Ed in "Metro" (8/6/08): "Women Beware Parting Gift from Bush"

by Joan Malin, President and CEO, Planned Parenthood of New York City

It’s 3 a.m. and your sister is in need of emergency contraception. She goes to her closest hospital emergency room and asks for it. Instead of being given this backup method of birth control, she is instead given a dose of heavy judgment and turned away by a health care provider who believes birth control is “wrong.”

As a parting gift to its right-wing base, the Bush administration is days away from an attack on women’s health care that would limit the rights of patients to receive complete and accurate health information and services.

This wrong-headed proposal would require organizations that receive federal funding to certify that they will not refuse to hire health care providers who object to abortion and even certain types of birth control. Additionally, it radically redefines abortion to intentionally erase the real distinction between prevention and termination and instead claims that some of the most common and effective methods of birth control are the same thing as an abortion.

The proposed change will have a chilling effect on reproductive health care provision in this country. No matter where a woman goes for health care, she should be able to access quality care and information. Under this proposal, that will no longer be the case. Instead, she will have to worry that her best options are being sacrificed on the altar of someone else’s ideology.

This proposal is wholly out of step with the American electorate. As the National Women’s Law Center points out, this rule could prevent states from enforcing their own laws that: require insurance plans that cover other prescription drugs to cover birth control (such as is the case in New York state); ensure that rape victims get timely access to emergency contraception; and ensure that pharmacies provide timely access to birth control without discrimination or delay.

We have worked too hard and too long to watch the lame-duck Bush administration sneak in an eleventh-hour regulation that seeks to deny quality, affordable health care to millions of women.