Contraception as Abortion

Interesting. I'm not totally sure what exactly what HHS-45-CFR* entails. From my reading we're dealing with the federal government withholding funding from any organization that "discriminates" against a healthcare professional that refuses to administer an abortificant. The part that's causing bristling is that HHS has expanded the latter terminology to include emergency contraception (bka "the morning after pill"). Most of us know that EC does nothing but provide, ahem, emergency contraception (imagine that) with higher doses of the same hormones (estrogens and/or progestins) found in typical contraceptives. Taken after unprotected sex, high hormonal doses can prevent pregnancy. But, basically, they're powerless against pregnancy that has already occurred. So, that's disturbing -- using an umbrella to define abortion in order to make it inclusive of contraception. It's also disturbing that there are funds out there potentially withheld from important reproductive services, impinging on certain critical women's rights.

With our broad lens, it looks to be a way to protect individuals with certain moral positions on abortion from discrimination; namely those with personal or religious stances against it. This puts the rest of us in a pretty tricky position -- because fighting for the right is exactly the same ideological battle. Do we think that those individuals who have an ethical stance against abortion should not be allowed to work in clinics where abortions are performed? (Remember, this could also very easily be the very clinic where babies are born.) I don't think so. It would be the same as saying we can't work in L&D because we support and are willing to participate in termination or for that matter, contraception. We don't want such divisions.

I want to acknowledge that defining abortion by conscience absolutely sets a dangerous precedent for policy: when we start defining "life" as implantation, there are some very real consequences that darken our horizon. It's a slippery slope, for sure. I just worry about accepting all of the hullabaloo caused by commentary without going back to the source and making critical and thoughtful statements of our own. We need to remember that sometimes "critical" commentary isn't critical (as in thinking outside of the box), but critical, (as in reactionary). I encourage everyone to read the HHS statement before running off, pitchforks raised, for the lynching.

~ If you want a really straight-forward women's right issue to be pissed about, look at this.
Thanks to slight of hand by Senator David Vitter (R-La.) the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, initially meant to provide "new programs, improved facilities and funding for the Indian Health Services system which serves about 1.9 million people nationwide," now explicitly restricts abortions under IHS programs. That's a huge problem. Apparently, Vitter's handiwork is nothing more than a reiteration of the Hyde Amendment which has been under scrutiny and re-evaluated and fiddled with practically every year for the past thirty + years. (That's the one that bars the use of federal funds to pay for abortions for low-income women.)

*Thanks to fellow MEPN, the lovely and brilliant Nicole, for alerting CN to this development.