HHS Secretary Finally Addresses Proposed Regs
When I heard that Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt had a blog, I was sure that he’d comment on Bush’s proposed HHS regulations that would blur the lines between contraception and abortion.
Well he finally has. Yesterday Leavitt blogged that the Bush regulations stray from his intention of defining “the legal right medical practitioners have to practice according to their conscience.” What exactly that means — or how his plan would differ from the right doctors already have to refuse patients certain services — is still up for debate. Leavitt wrote of the proposed regulations:
An early draft of the regulations found its way into public circulation before it had reached my review. It contained words that lead some to conclude my intent is to deal with the subject of contraceptives, somehow defining them as abortion. Not true.
The Bush Administration has consistently supported the unborn. However, the issue I asked to be addressed in this regulation is not abortion or contraceptives, but the legal right medical practitioners have to practice according to their conscience and patients should be able to choose a doctor who has beliefs like his or hers.
The Department is still contemplating if it will issue a regulation or not. If it does, it will be directly focused on the protection of practitioner conscience.
Reuters interprets this post to mean that a “regulation that would define many forms of contraception as abortion will not be proposed in that form, if at all.”
It’s probably wise to not get too optimistic just yet about Leavitt’s intentions. But this is a good step.
By Tara Sweeney