Community | July 30, 2008 | 24 comments

Dubya's new attack on birth control

source: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2008/07/30/a_new_att...

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With just a few months left in office, President Bush is still doing the bidding of social conservatives who oppose women's reproductive freedoms. Under the guise of rules to protect antiabortion nurses and doctors from discrimination in hiring, a proposed new regulation would expand the definition of abortion to include any form of contraception that can work by stopping implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus. This can include common birth-control pills, emergency contraception, and the intra-uterine device, or IUD. Doctors who refuse to perform abortions for reasons of personal conscience already are protected by law.

The potential impact of this new rule on the more than 500,000 hospitals, family planning clinics, and medical offices that receive any form of federal funding could be dramatic. The rule could also undercut many state laws - including one in Massachusetts requiring hospitals to provide emergency contraception for rape victims - and laws requiring prescription drug insurance plans to include contraceptives. Massachusetts passed such a law in 2002.

The draft proposed rule highlights the fact that many antiabortion groups also oppose one good method of preventing the unplanned pregnancies that lead to abortions - birth control. At some point in their lives, 98 percent of US women use birth control.

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24 comments // Dubya's new attack on birth control

  • lucky2bme
    • 0
      lucky2bme  

    • This is a very disturbing trend taking place across America. Religion is being used to deny people their medical needs and their civil rights.

      This country was founded on freedom of religion and now the religious right is using religion to deny others their American rights. Just like freedom of religion is protected, we need to protect freedom FROM religion.

      I don't think our forefathers meant for religion to be used this way. If something conflicts with your religious beliefs, then don't do it, but you cannot force others to live by your religion. I guess this gives the term "religious persecution" a whole new meaning, in that the religious are now persecuting everyone else.

    • 3 years ago
  • stephanieann1209
  • GatorMonkey
  • amilli23
    • 0
      amilli23  

    • There is no way this will make it through mainly because the wives of congressmen and congresswomen have taken birth control for a long time. Secondly, birth control makes the money for pharmaceutical companies well that and allergy medicine so this is probably the dumbest thing he has ever tried.

      I hope he plans on increasing medicaid because that's what's going to be needed.

    • 3 years ago
  • GatorMonkey
    • 0
      GatorMonkey  
    • amilli23:

      Well not just that (ok now im being somewhat serious).

      Birth control pills aren't just out there to prevent unwanted pregnancy.

      I've been on birth control to help control PCOS (poly-cystic ovarian syndrome) since I was in my early teens. I know a lot of you out there know it helps control abnormal menstrual cycles and acne due to an increase of hormones (or in some women, not enough), but the hormone regulation in birth control helps a much wider and sometimes more serious forms of ailments in women. If it weren't for the pill I would have seen the inside of the E-room bi-monthly just to cope with the pain.

      UNFORTUNATELY, those neo-cons can only look at it from one angle... "baby-preventer." For me, it's much more. Yes, it prevents me from starting a family before I'm financially stable - before I'm READY to bring a child into this world - but it also regulates something my body can't do on its own... something that goes beyond acne. And that is just ONE of the benefits of birth control. I know the article is about more than just the pill but Bush is an idiot... and for the MEDICINAL benefits of the combination of estrogen and other hormones alone...(not to mention what amilli mentioned... the financial benefits to the medical and insurance worlds) this won't pass.

    • 3 years ago
  • Enjoy_Cannabis
  • GatorMonkey
  • Jayhawker
  • bekah_1984
    • 0
      bekah_1984  

    • Wow. Just wow. Birth control pills? Are they serious? The egg is only half the DNA required to make a human being. meaning, it's no more alive than my hair is. I certainly hope that if this gets passed, they ban all male masturbation as well. Because, you know, millions of unborn children die at the hands of men that way. Why not ban condoms while we're at it. Or better yet, sex altogether. Please, keep all religions and sexism away from my body. Separation of church and state my ass. I suppose women will have to go back to older ways of preventative birth control.

    • 3 years ago
  • anglcazn
    • 0
      anglcazn  

    • It's so hypocritical. They criticize the government for being too involved in families and business. They preach, "Government must lay their hands off the family and business." yet, here they go and try to tell me about my reproductive rights. How typical and hypocritical.

    • 3 years ago
  • jacijacijaci
  • GatorMonkey
  • seeker561
  • preachermanfl
    • 0
      preachermanfl  

    • Abortion is not birth control. Few, if any, of the 'fundamentalists and evangelicals’ oppose birth control. Most oppose abortion.
      The problem is that we are confusing the two things. Killing a fetus is not the same thing as preventing a pregnancy. Do any of the left thinking people understand that?

    • 3 years ago
  • Saladin
    • 0
      Saladin  
    • preachermanfl:

      A fetus cannot be considered a legitimate human life until the third trimester. And no abortion is not birth control, it was never meant to be. It's desigend to be an emergency procedure.

      And you're totally wrong about Fundamentalists. They DO oppose birth control and ALL sexuality that doesn't fit with their Christian image. If they had it their way, we'd be back in 1930 with all contraceptives banned and anything but missionary position banned.

    • 3 years ago
  • JacquelineLeona
  • seeker561
  • JacquelineLeona
  • FallenMorgan
  • extblues
    • 0
      extblues  

    • Yet more proof that Bush and his neo-con buddies are either trying to ensure the future status of the United States as the largest third-world nation, or the triumphant return of the 1950's (...without the job security, patriotism, or basic human rights, of course).

    • 3 years ago
  • PajamaDan
    • 0
      PajamaDan  

    • Birth control reduces the number of stupid kids,... who might one day grow up to bury nations,... under the guise of a presidency.
      Put Bush's picture in your bedroom. Instant birth control.
      And don't let males decide women's rights. Baby prevention is gonna happen, no matter what,... so just let it be legal and safe.

    • 3 years ago
  • chuygarsia2
  • Saladin
    • 0
      Saladin  

    • This was on current a couple weeks ago, it was on tv for like two days and there were hundreds of comments in outrage.

    • 3 years ago
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