Annnnd….attempts by state and federal governments to interfere with a woman’s freedom to control what goes on inside her own personal womb continue apace. Joe Windish has an earlier piece about an 8th Circuit decision that unleashes the State of South Dakota on women who seek abortion in that state by letting the state insert a word or two on behalf of its legislature into the discussion. At this rate, I’m afraid, just having the state insist on telling women who are trying to make a decision about its legislators’ personal views is going to be the least of our worries.
Hillary Clinton is (in her words) ‘sound[ing] the alarm’ regarding the Department of Health and Human Service’s pending regulations that will redefine common forms of contraception as ‘abortion.’ What’s in a name?:
These proposed regulations set to be released next week will allow healthcare providers to refuse to provide contraception to women who need it. (HuffPost)
That’s bad. That’s very, very bad. The ramifications are serious, both for those who think it’s not the government’s business to impose its current ideology on health care issues such as availability of contraception to the poor or who are already grumbling about all the women on welfare who expect taxpayers to pay for their children’s basic necessities.
If you’re one of those, you should definitely sign this petition. Here’s why:
As Clinton says:
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is poised to put in place new barriers to accessing common forms of contraception like birth control pills, emergency contraception and IUDs by labeling them “abortion.”…
These rules pose a serious threat to providers and uninsured and low-income Americans seeking care. They could prevent providers of federally-funded family planning services, like Medicaid and Title X, from guaranteeing their patients access to the full range of comprehensive family planning services. They’ll also build significant barriers to counseling, education, contraception and preventive health services for those who need it most: low-income and uninsured women and men.
The regulations could even invalidate state laws that currently ensure access to contraception for many Americans. (HuffPost)
Via Melissa McEwan, this clip from her press conference:
"This is a gratuitous, unnecessary insult to the women of the United States of America. … It is an end-run around the rights of women to make choices about our own health, and we are not going to stand for it. … We will fight you every step of the way." (via Shakesville)
Women everywhere have cause to be grateful to her for speaking out on this issue. Taylor Marsh says:
Senator Clinton keeps fighting for us. Her post at RH Reality Check, which is cross-posted over at Huffington
Post, hits it out of the park.
She does. Watch, listen, and learn.
I hope the Obama campaign will very quickly weigh in on this issue as well—it will help vitiate my feelings of concern about how very mistaken he was about the current law in his recent statements about late term abortions. I know he’s off spreading goodwill and educating himself about the war, but this is really going to have an impact on women and families—including all those low income families on the South Side of Chicago.
CROSS-POSTED WITH SLIGHT CHANGES AT BUCK NAKED POLITICS
PAST CONTRIBUTOR.