Love it or Leavitt

Some of the most chilling threats are whispered. This is the case in a recent blog post by Michael Leavitt, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. In soothing tones, Leavitt explains on his personal blog that a recently leaked HHS proposal was not what he intended. That proposal sought to reclassify many forms of contraception as abortion, a strategy to protect those who want to deny women pregnancy prevention. Leavitt's post starts off seeming like an apology for what one hopes was a really big misunderstanding ("An early draft of the regulations found its way into public circulation before it had reached my review," he writes). But his explanation does not put to rest any concerns that the agency will offer cover to ideological extremists. Instead, Leavitt explains that what he seeks is something far more vague and all encompassing than merely reclassifying common forms of contraception as abortion. For example, he seems to say, what about all the other contraceptives that would fall outside that classification? Like the condom or diaphragm? A health care worker could have a problem with those too. His clarification suggests, "We didn't mean to leave those out." And why limit this to just abortion and contraception? (There's gotta be hundreds of medical procedures and medications that the morally imaginative could think are wrong.) Secretary Leavitt's idea appears to be that folks of conscience shouldn't have to make scientific sounding arguments claiming something causes abortion in order to deny a patient care. According to Leavitt, the health care you seek could be morally offensive for a whole host of other reasons, not just abortion. No matter the health care need, it's whatever the practitioner's conscience dictates.

Leavitt writes,

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.

Leavitt's thinking on the matter raises more questions than it answers. Would a regulation include a measure that establishes what the agency accepts as unacceptable? Leavitt's post explained that defining what is objectionable was not his goal. His goal is too create sanctuary for anyone who hopes to use "conscience"--yet to be defined--as an excuse not do the jobs they were hired to do. The only part of the leaked HHS proposal Leavitt addressed as "not his intention" was that it limited the "right to refuse" protection. The leaked regulation applied that protection only to those who have a problem with abortion and many forms of contraception. That, to him, seems too limiting.

He doesn't offer any correction to reports that, if approved, the leaked proposal would force health centers to hire religious extremists. For instance, under the leaked proposal, it would be illegal to discriminate in hiring against those who refuse to take part in a health care service even if the service they object to is the main focus of the facility. (Thank you for calling Planned Parenthood, this is Randall Terry, how may I help you?) He doesn't debunk predictions that the leaked proposal would invalidate state laws established to protect patients from the ever changing whims and superstitions of ideologues whose main goals is to exercise their beliefs in our bodies. Leavitt does not deny that laws that now require emergency room staff to offer rape victims pregnancy prevention would be unenforceable. We are left to believe that much of the leaked proposal is perfectly fine with him.

If Leavitt's intent is as broad, and undefined, as he seems to suggest in his blog post, your right to health care will be determined by the sensitivities of nearly every person you must interact with. Your doctor may not have a problem giving you that prescription, but will the pharmacist fill it? And, if so, will the cashier ring it up? Women have to run a gauntlet to get reproductive health care in recent years. If we leave it to Leavitt, that gauntlet may be the healthcare passage for everyone.

For breaking news on threats to birth control access and information visit birthcontrolwatch.org

Comments

[tc399]

Are they suggesting that, because I had a vasectomy I am guilty of murdering every child I didn't conceive? Because that's exactly what this nonsense sounds like to me. The government can stay OUT of my reproductive cycle, thank you.

And while you are at it, spy on my library card if you dare. But keep your heads out of my ass!

[jmad]

This is a typical reaction of the conservative pinchbrain. They always pick the deal.
Control the bedroom, not the boardroom.

[RumiSouth]

Wait...when the GOP shot down health-care reform in 1994, didn't they shout: "Decisions should be between YOU and YOUR DOCTOR!"

[insanityfollows]

Where is this going to end? I am really tired of the government trying to legislate morality, and I am really tired of the government in our bedrooms. Life means choices, and one of the biggest choices is our sexual destiny. Whether we want that to include a lot of children or no children, it should still be our individual choice. The people who claim to be pro-life and claim that abortion is being used as birth control (extremely rare) are quickly going to find that it WILL be used as birth control if contraceptives are made illegal. And, because in their world, abortion will be illegal as well, their mothers, wives, sisters and daughters will be dying or be permanently injured while seeking an illegal abortion because they couldn't have access to contraceptives. It is really incomprehensible that this discussion is taking place at all in 2008. If contraceptives are made illegal, should we then make ED drugs illegal as well, because wouldn't that just encourage excessive sexual activity? And how are women supposed to help support their families if they are at home pregnant and raising children constantly? Most families require a two income household. Moreover, from a purely practical standpoint, as a species, if we don't practice contraception, we will doom ourselves. Thank you for the blog, and we have to keep our voices heard on this.

[lisakaz2]

You know THEY will always get around the bans they want little people to observe. And they seem to want the middle class to disappear, so as to control the mases and to gain extra potential troops to expand an empire. Like Mussolini, they have too much Rome envy.

[tblue]

One runs a GANTLET and throws down a GAUNTLET.

Just sayin'.

[bayside]

Have you noticed we have erectile dysfunction ads galore on television and birth control pills are not covered on insurance, but viagra is. Talk about double standard..I for one ,want the bill of rights to be for all americans not just a select few......

[Scott Swenson - Huffpost Blogger]

Actually it is considered a spelling variant.

To the substance of the piece, America -- are you paying attention? Can any of us really believe that the country needs to move further to the right? These people have gone so far outside the American mainstream on sexual and reproductive health, and they simply will not quit. It is up to us to show them the door and end this assault on personal freedoms, privacy and health.

[Sciguy]

If we move any further to the right, we'll fall off the edge of the earth...

[Americatortures]

Why don't these loons just shut up and go away?? Obama will rescind all of this the day he takes office-McCain will support it all!!

[lisakaz2]

Thanks for taking his blog apart. It is scary. Seems to me he'd want a hospital to hire a Jehovah's Witness to handle blood transfusions and not to be fired when he/she refuses to allow them (JW's are against these). Does this guy even have a degree in anything?

It's like a Mickey Mouse fed -- and that's an insult to Mickey.

[LeftRight]

This whole post, while seriously disturbing, is a complete non-surprise. Anyone who has seen or heard anything from the bush folks in these last 7 years knows that bush is still just a superstitious rube who thinks that science is either magic, or worse, the work of the devil!

[mercury613]

And that a woman is merely a walking uterus.

[Laserbeam]

Yes, but I have found that most men just don't think it's important. It's a "women's issue" - or so those idiots think. Where are the men when we write our letters, make our phonecalls, hold our demonstrations, and vote in elections?

I am sick and tired of men I've never met and most likelly never will meet demanding control over my body and all other women's bodies and yet not enforcing child support laws. These same people cut the funding for anything related to domestic violence, too.

What part of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to these people not understand? Not being allowed to control whether one reproduces is a basic human right and essential to one's happiness.