According to recent reporting, the Bush administration is circulating a draft of a proposed regulation that, if enacted, would jeopardize women’s health care by allowing providers to withhold both services and the critical information women need to make fully informed decisions about their health care. Moreover, it treads on democratically enacted state policies aimed at ensuring access to health care for the state’s citizens.

This proposed rule will put women's access to birth control and the information they need to make health care decisions at risk. This politically motivated regulatory change deliberately confuses contraception with abortion, putting political agendas ahead of patients’ needs. As a result, women's ability to manage their own health care is at risk of being compromised by politics and ideology.

This is a far-reaching rule for two reasons. One, 98 percent of women use some form of contraception during their lifetime. Two, this would affect any hospital, clinic, doctor’s office, or pharmacy that receives federal funding, directly or indirectly, from HHS — a recent Congressional Quarterly report put that number at  more than 500,000 nationwide.

This “rule” would redefine abortion to include most forms of birth control, and would have a devastating impact on the reproductive health of American women. What will happen to women that rely on Planned Parenthood for their sexual health care and birth control method? This rule could very well increase the number of abortions preformed every year. Mixing medical facts with religious belief is a line that should never be crossed no matter what medications or treatments are being considered.

The new HHS rule could also require Planned Parenthood to hire the woman that protests against birth control in front of our Kalamazoo health center every week. Would a client coming to Planned Parenthood for contraception advice be given medically accurate information from a person with such strong beliefs? Not likely. This sets a very dangerous precedent and blurs the line between medical facts and theology. Planned Parenthood of South Central Michigan would have to consider refusing federal funds and consequently, serving considerably fewer uninsured women as this would not be a rule we could comply with. This in turn would increase the number of unintended pregnancies and abortions. We are urge all concerned citizens to speak out against this dangerous political move by the Bush administration.