Not content with the damage they’ve done in the last 8 years, the Bushies are apparently at it again. The Department of Health and Human Services is circulating a draft proposal for review that would redefine pregnancy to start at the moment of conception, contrary to current medical definitions. It would also require medical facilities to not discriminate against hiring anti-abortion personnel, and prevent the denial of funding to any medical facility that does not provide abortions. Adding icing to the cake, it would also classify certain forms of birth control (like the morning after pill, IUD, etc) as abortion.

Social conservative groups are also hoping that in general it will reduce the availability of contraception and also reduce the number of insurance companies that include birth control in their list of benefits.

The next step is probably an increase in the number of abortions, which in turn will give the anti abortion protestors more to protest about. You’d think that someone would figure out that increasing the availability and use of contraception would help reduce the number of abortions. However, given the large number of rabid male supporters in the anti abortion movement (and you know how we men are sometimes slow to figure stuff out...), I don’t hold my breath. If the debate were strictly limited to women, I have a hunch something would be worked out in some way.

When the men get involved, issues such as keeping women barefoot, pregnant, and submissive, and condemning the “harlots and tramps” are always floating around in the background. If these guys were serious about helping kids, they would push contraception, push the enforcement of child support, push counseling prior to marriage, and focus their efforts on helping the kids who are already here. There are tens of thousands of kids across the country that are malnourished, abused, mistreated, and so forth. I’ve yet to see any of these anti abortion fanatics make a real effort to help these kids. It seems it’s a lot easier to rail on about the injustice to unborn babies than it is to actually go out and help some living human beings.

Two links below. One is news article and one is Christine Anne Piesyk’s blog.

HHS draft article

Christine Anne Piesyk blog