Don't Let the Bush Administration Restrict Access to Health Care
President Bush and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued an eleventh-hour regulation that undermines health care access and restricts the rights of women to make healthy and informed decisions about their reproductive health.
Existing laws already make it illegal for federally funded clinics to require their employees to provide abortion services if doing so clashes with their beliefs. However, existing laws also ensure that providers meet their patients' health care needs. Bush's new regulation could destroy that balance by letting the religious objections of health care workers take precedence over the needs of patients.
To make matters worse, the rule could dramatically expand the type of services that health care workers can refuse to provide. Under the Bush Administration's regulation, patients could be denied information, counseling and referrals for services including birth control, end-of-life directives, fertility care and HIV/AIDS care.
Please ask President Obama to end the Bush Administration's strategy of putting ideology ahead of public health. Ask him to expand access to health care rather than restricting it.
Please pledge to uphold our right to receive comprehensive health care. Over the past eight years, the policies pursued by the Bush Administration have created and exacerbated inequalities in access to reproductive health care, demonized certain health care services including birth control and abortion and supported withholding vital information from America's youth. As President, you have the power to safeguard the right of all Americans to access health care services in accordance with their needs.
The rule issued by the Bush Administration further undermines access to basic preventive health care. Instead of balancing the needs of medical professionals and patients, this politically motivated regulation would let the objections of health care workers take precedence over the needs of patients. Bush's rule gives medical employees an extraordinary ability to deny care by opting out of activities that they find objectionable.
The regulation would also expand the types of services that medical providers can refuse to provide. Under Bush's rule, health care workers would be able to deny patients information about a wide variety of services ranging from contraception to HIV/AIDS care. The rule could even undermine state laws that ensure access to contraception.
[Your comments]
I ask that you work against Bush's eleventh-hour regulation that puts ideology ahead of public health. Given the need for basic health services, it is time to expand health care rather than restrict it.
