Christina Page
In a spectacular act of complicity with the religious right, the
Department of Health and Human Services Monday released a proposal that
allows any federal grant recipient to obstruct a woman's access to
contraception. In order to do this, the Department is attempting to
redefine many forms of contraception, the birth control 40% of
Americans use, as abortion. Doing so protects extremists under the
Weldon and Church amendments. Those laws prohibit federal grant
recipients from requiring employees to help provide or refer for
abortion services. In the "Definitions" section of the HHS proposal it
states,
"Abortion: An abortion is the termination of a
pregnancy. There are two commonly held views on the question of when a
pregnancy begins. Some consider a pregnancy to begin at conception
(that is, the fertilization of the egg by the sperm), while others
consider it to begin with implantation (when the embryo implants in the
lining of the uterus). A 2001 Zogby International American Values poll
revealed that 49% of Americans believe that human life begins at
conception. Presumably many who hold this belief think that any action
that destroys human life after conception is the termination of a
pregnancy, and so would be included in their definition of the term
"abortion." Those who believe pregnancy begins at implantation believe
the term "abortion" only includes the destruction of a human being
after it has implanted in the lining of the uterus."
The proposal continues,
"Both definitions of pregnancy inform medical practice.
Some medical authorities, like the American Medical Association and the
British Medical Association, have defined the term "established
pregnancy" as occurring after implantation. Other medical authorities
present different definitions. Stedman's Medical Dictionary, for
example, defines pregnancy as "[t]he state of a female after conception
and until the termination of the gestation." Dorland's Medical
Dictionary defines pregnancy, in relevant part, as "the condition of
having a developing embryo or fetus in the body, after union of an
oocyte and spermatozoon."
Up until now, the federal government followed the definition of
pregnancy accepted by the American Medical Association and our nation's
pregnancy experts, the American College of Obstetricians and
Gynecologists, which is: pregnancy begins at implantation. With this
proposal, however, HHS is dismissing medical experts and opting instead
to accept a definition of pregnancy based on polling data. It now
claims that pregnancy begins at some biologically unknowable moment
(there's no test to determine if a woman's egg has been fertilized).
Under these new standards there would be no way for a woman to prove
she's not pregnant. Thus, any woman could be denied contraception under
HHS' new science.
The other rarely discussed issue here is whether hormonal
contraception even does what the religious right claims. There is no
scientific evidence that hormonal methods of birth control can prevent
a fertilized egg from implanting in the womb. This argument is the
basis upon which the religious right hopes to include the 40% of the
birth control methods Americans use, such as the pill, the patch, the
shot, the ring, the IUD, and emergency contraception, under the
classification "abortion." Even the "pro-life" movement's most
respected physicians cautioned the movement about making these claims.
In 1999, the physicians -- who, like the movement at large, define
pregnancy as beginning at fertilization-- released an open letter to community stating:
"Recently, some special interest groups have claimed,
without providing any scientific rationale, that some methods of
contraception may have an abortifacient effect...The 'hormonal
contraception is abortifacient' theory is not established fact. It is
speculation, and the discussion presented here suggests it is
error...if a family, weighing all the factors affecting their own
circumstances, decides to use this modality, we are confident that they
are not using an abortifacient."
As the HHS proposal proves, the absence of fact or evidence does not
slow anti-abortion movement attempts to classify hormonal contraception
as abortion. With HHS' proposal they have struck gold. Anyone working
for a federal clinic, or a health center that receives federal funding
-- even in the form of Medicaid -- and would like to prevent a woman
from accessing most prescription birth control methods has federal
protection to do so. As the HHS proposal details,
"Because the statutes that would be enforced through this regulation seek, in part, to
protect individuals and institutions from suffering discrimination on
the basis of conscience, the conscience of the individual or
institution should be paramount in determining what constitutes abortion,
within the bounds of reason. As discussed above, both definitions of
pregnancy are reasonable and used within the scientific and medical
community. The Department proposes, then, to allow individuals and
institutions to adhere to their own views and adopt a definition of
abortion that encompasses both views of abortion.
" (emphasis mine)
So HHS proposes that anyone can enforce his or her own definition of
abortion "within the bounds of reason." And, it would seem the bounds
are pretty far flung. Most dangerously, perhaps, this new rule
establishes a legal precedent that may eventually be used as a basis
for banning the most popular forms of birth control along with what is,
in fact, abortion.
