Posted by
Always To The Right on Wednesday, November 19, 2008 2:30:17 PM
The Bush administration has decided to push last-minute rule changes
in the lame-duck period that would strengthen protections for health
providers with religious objections to abortion and contraception.
Objections have come from within the administration itself and from
states and providers over the new rules, which they claim greatly
overreach already-existing protections and obliterate compromises
reached on these issues. It appears that President Bush has decided to
pre-empt the Freedom of Choice Act as his last major domestic effort
EEOC officials object to the new rules, as did the state of
Connecticut, claiming that they are both unnecessary and too
complicated. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 already prohibits
discrimination based on religion, and the new rules will further
confuse employers as to the definition of undue hardship, the point at
which employers can demand employees to follow procedures. They also
object to the sudden submission of these new rule changes, pointing out
that the White House missed two of its self-imposed deadlines for new
regulations.
To some extent, they may have a point. If a Muslim pharmacist
refused to dispense birth control to unmarried women, for instance, I
suspect he’d get a lot less sympathy than a Christian pharmacist would
under similar circumstances. An owner of a pharmacy can choose not to
stock those remedies, of course, but when a pharmacist works for
someone else, they can’t make that choice — and if they’re the only
pharmacist available to dispense medication, that would mean that
pharmacy would lose customers.
However, this isn’t really about dispensing the Pill. It’s about
forcing hospitals and clinics who offer OB/GYN services and accept
Medicare and other federal funding to provide abortions. The Freedom of Choice Act
completely federalizes the issue of abortion, making Congress the sole
arbiter of restrictions — which FOCA explicitly repeals entirely. It
also repeats the canard that abortion isn’t available in 87% of the
country (despite which 22% of all pregnancies
in the US end in abortion) and that FOCA intends to rectify that.
How? The only option available would be a requirement that all OB/GYN
clinics and hospitals provide abortions on request.
The Catholic Church runs almost a thousand health care facilities
and treated over 90 million patients in 2007. They have already said
that passage of FOCA would likely force them to close down most or all
of these facilities in order to avoid being forced to provide
abortions. The Bush rules attempt to prevent that from happening. The
incoming Obama administration will be forced to repeal them before
imposing FOCA, a not insurmountable obstacle but one which will make
their intention to force OB/GYN providers to become abortionists plain.