It’s The Slow Dripping You Have to Stop

So last week I ranted about the proposed HHS regulation that seeks to redefine contraception in a way that will limit womens’ access to contraception. Today, I am writing my more measured post on the subject even thought I’m just as mad today as I was last week. First, how might the new HHS regulations effect Nevada?

Prescriptions for Contraception
Now
Pharmacists in Nevada are required to fill prescriptions for contraceptives prescribed by doctors.

Future
The proposed HHS regulation would override the state pharmacy board’s own ruling and allow pharmacists to refuse to fill doctors’ prescriptions for contraceptives. It would also allow pharmacists (and aides) to refuse to refer patients to a pharmacist who will fill their prescription–forcing women to search out new providers and interview them about what they will and will not prescribe to women before knowing whether or not they can get their prescriptions filled.

Insurance Coverage for Contraception
Now
Nevada law currently requires health insurance providers to cover some contraception in prescription drug programs.

Future
Under the proposed HHS regulation, this would no longer be the case. Health insurance providers like St. Mary’s would no longer be required to provide prescription programs that provide contraception coverage. Women insured by those health insurance providers would have to pay 100% of their contraception costs out of pocket.

But let’s look at the larger picture, shall we? Once again, women are faced with the fact that their government does not believe they are entitled to the same rights as other patients. The proposed HHS regulation not only prioritizes the rights of medical providers before their patients, it’s also another move in the long pro-government mandated pregnancy movement’s chess game to chip away enough of Roe v. Wade as to make it ineffectual. As this Wall Street Journal article makes clear, the intent of the regulation is to redefine conception legally, this time to characterize many contraception methods as abortion. In stark terms, the government of the United States wants to define your method of birth control as murder.

From my previous post “I’m Sorry, But I Don’t Like What You, So I’m Not Going To Give You Your Medication:”

This self-righteous indignation crap is completely out of control. What happened to the law? What happened to professional ethics? Is my pharmacist going to have the right to deny me birth control next because they dont think a single woman should be having sex? Is a vegan pharmacist going to have the right to quiz me on why I have high cholesterol, and if they decide its from eating too much meat, will they have the right to deny me my prescribed medication? What if you’re a man and the pharmacist objects to sex and refuses to sell you condoms because you should be prepared to pay the consequences for having sex? What if we all have to start filling out questionnaires when we go the pharmacists so they can make sure we don’t make any lifestyle choices they find to be objectionable? Where does it end?

Women, and the men who love them–this kind of stupidity and lack of respect cannot stand. What are you going to do about it?

I would like to direct you to another post I wrote a while back about last year’s Supreme Court ruling on the Partial Birth Abortion Act of 2003 and Cho Seung Hui called “Choice,” because that’s really what this latest HHS ruling is all about:

Promiscuity, well choice really, is the real problem with allowing women the right to an abortion–the choice to have and not have sex which means that women then have the choice to get married or not, to work or not, etc. Amanda Marcotte writes:

“Today’s Supreme Court decision upholding the ban on “partial birth abortions” is the finale of a radical manuever by anti-choicers to strike at the heart of the issue and establish legal precedent devaluing women as human beings. It’s a smart move. The mushy middle on the issue of choice swings on the issue of women’s value—the mushy middle believes that women have value but they can also be wigged out by some sex paranoia. So you see a lot of “compromise” positions that pay lip service to the idea that women have an independent value as humans (rape exceptions, health exceptions) but still people tolerate the law putting a bunch of obstacles and headaches between women and getting abortions, because hey, who wants to stand up for the rights of Sluts Who Should Have Kept Their Legs Closed? In sum, we have a situation where a lot of laws like waiting periods and parental notifications establish the notion that having sex voluntarily should be a punishable offense for women, but not one that incurs a death penalty. (And that we can keep our hands clean by letting nature do the dirty work.) The problem with these compromises from the anti-choice view is that they are too soft and permissive with the daughters of Eve, and more to the point, if you allow that women have value and shouldn’t be forced to die because of pregnancy or shouldn’t be forced to bear a child because of rape, then you open yourself up for the argument that women have rights. Once you agree that women’s lives should be respected, it’s a downhill slide to agreeing that women are equal to men and should be free. We know that, because we’ve seen it happen over history.

So this bill skips the preliminaries of dismantling women’s rights one at a time and instead gets to the heart of the matter. Late term abortions are performed for maternal health reasons, full stop. Sometimes it’s a fetal health issue, that it’s dead or will die as soon as it’s born, but in the end, it’s still about not forcing a woman to go through labor and delivery, which are dangerous, for no reason. And sometimes they are performed because the mother will die, be crippled, or have serious mental health problems if she delivers. The concept of “choice” isn’t really part of this discussion so much. This is about the concept that women deserve to be treated as full human beings who deserve proper medical care despite their current situation of being in a state only women can be in. That is what was on trial and the answer is no.

It’s a strike at the concept that women have independent value. If you reduce a woman to a baby factory, then one who needs a late term abortion is malfunctioning in her purpose somehow, so if she dies, she’s scrap metal, I suppose. Or scrap blood and tissue, as it were. I hate to be blunt like this, but there it is. They skipped over the preliminaries about what kind of rights women should have and attacked the idea that our very existence and health matters if we’ve failed in our duties as fetal incubators.”

We’ve seen some of the same reasoning by those who would deny the cervical cancer vaccine to girls because if girls know that they might not develop cancer and die as a result of having sex in the future, they will become promiscuous immediately. There are some parents who would rather let their daughters chance cervical cancer than allow for even the idea that their daughters might have sex (and we all know how feasible abstinence is). Just like for Cho, the freedom and choice the young women of Virginia Tech have is reason enough to punish them. Women’s freedom is their real enemy.

They see promiscuity everywhere.

The discussion should be about how to reduce abortions through access to birth control and sex education, not about eliminating the reproductive freedom of women (and their families) and the medical authority and decision-making of doctors. If Americans did not have enough reason to support the Democratic Party in the 2008 elections without this verdict, they certainly do now. William Congreve said that “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” although he was referring to love. In this case, we are talking about something much more important–freedom.

People are uncomfortable with the idea that women have and want choices. It’s even worse when we demand them. Well, we’ve come a long way baby, and we’re demanding our choices and there’ll be hell to pay to the persons who deny us what we rightfully and legally deserve

Similar Posts:

• Bush Administration Launches Another Unwinnable War–Against Contraception
• McCain Mocks Women’s Health During Debate
• Lame Duck Bush Quacks Big Time

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