What this means in the real world is that if a woman comes into a clinic or hospital and needs emergency contraception due to being raped, she might, on top of all the indignities and life-altering horror she has already suffered, have to face down a ridiculous confrontation with some fanatically superstitious religious and ill-informed hospital employee who thinks he or she knows better what the patient needs because “God” says. It also means that hospitals may limit care to women due to legal complications. It also could mean that a woman could never know where she’s going to be able to fill her prescription for oral contraceptives because her prescription could be denied by the nut behind the counter.
Robert Pear, in an article in the New York Times, writes, “Under the draft of a proposed rule, hospitals, clinics, researchers and medical schools would have to sign “written certifications” as a prerequisite to getting money under any program run by the Department of Health and Human Services…..The proposal defines abortion as follows: “any of the various procedures — including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action — that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation.” The article goes on to state, “Mary Jane Gallagher, president of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, which represents providers, said, “The proposed definition of abortion is so broad that it would cover many types of birth control, including oral contraceptives and emergency contraception.”
NARAL Pro-Choice Washington’s website states, “Most alarmingly of all, the proposed rule would redefine contraception as abortion. This is an intentional effort by the Bush Administration to confuse contraception, which prevents pregnancy, and abortion…..Here in Washington, this rule will undermine our state law (that pro-choice people like you worked so hard to pass) that requires emergency rooms to offer emergency contraception to sexual assault victims. And it means that any federally-funded women's health clinics in our state may be forced to hire doctors or nurses who oppose a woman's right to access abortion care and contraception…..We cannot let President Bush's anti-choice ideology trump our heard-earned pro-choice state laws…”
What I want to know is why the hell does Bush care so much about what goes on in American women’s vaginas? Why does Bush continue to put his nose where it doesn’t belong? Bush obviously cares nothing for the precious cargo residing in the wombs of Iraqi women and continues to allow these mothers and their unborn to be blown to bits, (much less the already born), and in fact can’t wait to do the same to the Iranian unborn, so why does he care so much about unwanted embryos or the un-implanted eggs of American women?
One explanation is that having government control over women’s bodies appeases the religious right, who unfortunately have far too much influence over our supposedly secular government, and it keeps them voting in the republican direction, and Bush can continue this false façade of being a “good Christian man” who is spoken to by “God.”
Who knows what lies in the deep dark recesses of Bush’s brain, all I know is that he and his religious buddies have no right making medical decisions for women, or withholding monies from institutions who medically and properly treat women. Bush also does not have the right to give inordinate power to fanatically superstitious religious and ill-informed health care employees and allow these nuts to make medical decisions for women. Yet Bush’s anti –women policies continue to move forward.
Bush’s program of denying women the right to birth control and abortion keeps going and going and going… who says Bush is a lame duck?
