Overturn the Misguided "Conscience" Regulations
As one of their final acts in office, the Bush Administration issued a dangerous and misguided "conscience" regulation that jeopardizes access to birth control and other medically necessary health care services and information.
The new Health and Human Services (HHS) regulation makes it easier for health care providers to withhold information and services to patients, if the providers have moral or religious objections.
This dangerous policy upsets the balance between provider beliefs and patients' right to affordable, accessible health care. It goes far beyond current law, and opens the door for insurance plans, hospitals, anti-choice doctors, nurses – even administrative staff like receptionists – to undermine patient access to the information and advice they expect and need.
The regulation also makes clear that health care providers are free to define abortion to include commonly used, FDA-approved methods of contraception, such as birth control pills.
Please take action today. Urge President Obama to reverse this ill-conceived HHS regulation in the critical first 100 days of his new Administration.
Dear President Barack Obama:
We urge you to take immediate action to reverse the provider "conscience" regulation issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on December 19. The regulation threatens to jeopardize women's access to basic health care services including contraception as well as important information about their health care options.
Instead of balancing the needs of medical professionals and patients, the regulation gives medical providers an unfettered right to refuse to provide health services and information they deem objectionable even in emergency situations. It also expands the types of health care providers and staff members who can refuse services, and the types of services they can refuse to provide. This means that patients receiving services and information at federally-funded entities will no longer be assured that they are even getting information about all available health options.
We appreciate your past opposition to efforts to restrict access to basic information about health care and treatment options. We urge you to waste no time in rejecting this final rule, which puts ideology ahead of public health.
[Your Comments]
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Address]
