Help Repeal HHS “Conscience” Rule
In one of the many heartening first steps he took after assuming the presidency, President Obama moved to rescind an HHS rule enacted at the last minute by the Bush administration.
The so-called “provider consciousness regulation” would severely undermine women’s ability to access reproductive health services by allowing doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other health care workers to refuse to perform or assist in abortions, sterilizations, and other contraceptive procedures on moral grounds.
When the regulation was first proposed back in August, the National Institute acted swiftly to voice its opposition. President Kelli Conlin noted,
“With approximately 46 million Americans without health insurance in this country, we should be putting resources into expanding access to health care, instead of wasting much-needed funding on efforts to restrict access to health care.”
This extreme rule starts us down a slippery slope to a world where insurance companies could refuse to cover birth control pills, hospital employees could withhold emergency contraception from sexual assault survivors, and even the doctor’s office receptionist could block a woman from getting the reproductive health care she needs—all on the basis of their own personal beliefs.
Despite President Obama calling for its repeal, this rule will remain in effect at least until the period for public comment ends on April 9th.
You can add your voice to the calls for repeal by telling the administration that this regulation is unjustified and dangerous. Visit the Center for Reproductive Rights to get talking points and directions for submitting your own comments online.
By Maya Dusenbery
April 9th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
[…] the public to weigh in on the Health and Human Services (HHS) “Provider Conscience Regulation.” As we’ve mentioned before, this rule, one of the “midnight regulations” that President Bush pushed through before leaving […]