Clinton, Murray slam Bush official on abortion proposal

Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) want a sit-down with a senior Bush administration official to protest a draft policy on abortion and birth control they say would limit women’s access to medical care.

In a letter delivered Friday to Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, Clinton and Murray indicate that they are not satisfied with Leavitt’s assurances that a proposed policy on abortion would not reduce access to birth control.

{mosads}“Your publicly stated explanation did not give us confidence the Department of Health and Human Services [HHS] is drafting a rule that would ensure these services,” the senators wrote. Clinton and Murray pointedly note in their letter that Leavitt has not answered their previous two letters on the draft regulation.

At issue is the definition of “abortion” employed in a draft regulation that the administration’s opponents say is so broad it could be used to include many forms of birth control, including the pill, IUDs and the “morning-after pill.”

The Bush administration ignited a storm of protest last month when The New York Times obtained a copy of a draft regulation that, critics said, could cut off federal dollars to hospitals and other facilities that refuse to employ medical practitioners who object to abortion or some forms of contraception.

Though Leavitt has not responded to Clinton and Murray, he attempted to quell the festering controversy in his official blog Thursday.

Leavitt denied the draft regulation is intended to target birth control, but seemed to acknowledge the language used in the regulation was not clear.

“It contained words that lead some to conclude my intent is to deal with the subject of contraceptives, somehow defining them as abortion. Not true,” Leavitt wrote.

“The issue I asked to be addressed in this regulation is not abortion or contraceptives but the legal right medical practitioners have to practice according to their conscience,” Leavitt wrote. Furthermore, Leavitt indicated the regulation might never be put into place.

According to The New York Times, the funding prohibition would apply to any facility that requires healthcare workers to participate in “any of the various procedures — including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action — that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation.”

Groups such as Planned Parenthood said that definition could be used to describe certain forms of birth control. “This administration needs to stop playing word games with women’s health, and state clearly whether they will reject any regulations that will undermine women’s access to basic healthcare,” Planned Parenthood Federation of America President Cecile Richards said in a statement responding to Leavitt’s blog.

“Secretary Leavitt’s vague comments on the draft HHS rule do nothing to reassure Americans that the administration is not considering redefining abortion to include common forms of contraception,” Richards said.

Leavitt characterized the drafting of the regulation as a response to new policies being adopted by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists that, he maintained, would penalize physicians who refuse to perform an abortion or refer patients to another doctor who would.

The draft regulation would only enforce existing federal and state “conscience laws,” Leavitt wrote. These statutes prohibit workplace discrimination against physicians and nurses who refuse to participate in abortions on religious or moral grounds.

Clinton and Murray have teamed up before to force the administration to take action on contraceptives policy. The two senators blocked the confirmation of President Bush’s nominee to head the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2005 until Leavitt promised the agency would make a final decision on whether to permit over-the-counter sales of the “morning-after pill.” The FDA still took more than a year to announce its approval, prompting scorn from Clinton and Murray.