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Bush Administration Issues Regulations Designed to Undermine Access to Family Planning
08/21/2008 - Mary Jane Gallagher, President & CEO, National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association
With the new regulations proposed this afternoon, the Bush Administration took an intentional step in further obstructing access to care for the millions of women and men who depend on federally funded health care services.
The proposed regulations, and Secretary Leavitt's public comments about them, leave the door open as to whether institutions and individuals can deny access to contraception.
We will work closely with Members of Congress to act quickly and aggressively to reject the proposed regulations that would impact nearly 600,000 entities that receive funding through the Department of Health and Human Services, many of which provide services to low-income and uninsured Americans.
The regulations are very troubling; they expand the ability of individuals to refuse to provide basic information, counseling and referral of important health care services. Federal law has for years carefully balanced protections for individual religious liberty and patients' access to reproductive health care. This vague and unnecessary expansion of existing law will only foster confusion.
Health care providers should never be subject to political whims, yet here is another example of the Bush Administration putting ideology ahead of sound science. With nearly 90 percent of Americans in support of federal funding for family planning services for low-income and uninsured women and men, NFPRHA must protect the millions of people who receive services and the vast majority of Americans who support them.
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