Bush Will Implement Anti-Abortion Regulation

Remember a few weeks ago when the Bush Administration tried to redefine contraception as abortion? Well, language in the policy allowed employees with moral objections to refuse to provide services--including birth control--that may interfere with 'human life.'

Well, they dropped the birth control language but the policy is a go. The Washington Post reports today that employees who object to the provision of abortion will now be officially protected by federal law. Why doctors, nurses, medical assistants, phlebotomists, or other clinic employees who object to abortion would work in an abortion clinic remain to be seen. But now we can all exhale since they will be 'protected' by the law lest they object to doing their jobs.

Here's my favorite part:

[Employees would also be protected if they objected to] referrals, training, and other arrangements for offending procedures. For example, an operating room nurse would assist in the performance of surgical procedures; an employee whose task it is to clean the instruments used in a particular procedure would be considered to assist in the performance of the particular procedure.

Seriously? Mike Leavitt, Secretary of Health and Human Services, was quoted as saying:

[The regulation] focuses on abortion and focuses on physicians' conscience in relation to that.

So, let me get this straight. A federally funded clinic must allow staff the right to object to performing an abortion itself; the right to refuse to clean or prepare instruments to be used for an abortion; the right to refuse to train other staff in how to perform an abortion or related procedures; and the right to refuse to refer a patient to a facility where she can get an abortion.

Mike Leavitt must not be a doctor, because physicians only perform 10% of those tasks.

David Stevens, Chief Executive Officer of the nutso Christian Medical and Dental Association said:

We think it's badly needed. Our members are facing discrimination every day, and as we get into human cloning and all sorts of possibilities, it's going to become even more important.

If you have a strong stomach, take a look at the website for the CMDA. I've always had great dentists but I'm not sure if they would describe their work as "glorifying God." This part wasn't in the Post article, but this quote comes from the CMDA's own press release on the HHS policy:

If current trends of coercion are allowed to continue, patients will not be able to find physicians who share their life-affirming values.

So the CMDA is concerned for patients who, without interference by the federal government in the practice of medicine, will not be able to find physicians who share their 'life-affirming values' to...perform an abortion for them? What the fuck are they talking about?

Here's "first year medical student" Trevor Kitchens:

I am currently very interested in OB/GYN, but I am afraid of the relationship between this field and abortion. My concern is that I will start a residence and would subsequently be required at some point to give a patient the option of abortion, which I would refuse. My fear is that taking this stand would cost me my residence position.

Yes, Trevor, you're right. Try pediatrics. Or dentistry.