NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts Denounces Bush Administration’s End-of-Year Attack on Access to Reproductive Health Services
Andrea Miller, Executive Director of NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts, issues a statement after the Bush Administration issues another attack on birth control access. For immediate release December 18, 2008 Contact: Andrea Miller
617-556-8800 x 12 NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts Denounces Bush Administration’s
End-of-Year Attack on Access to Reproductive Health Services Statement of Andrea Miller, Executive Director Boston, MA – We are saddened and outraged that the Bush Administration would use its final days to issue new regulations that threaten women’s access to birth control and undermine the right to choose. Rules published today could radically expand the ability of health care providers, medical institutions, and insurance plans to refuse to provide women necessary and appropriate care. These regulations are especially pernicious because they appear calculated to eviscerate state laws – like those now in place in the Commonwealth – that protect women’s access to reproductive health services. This includes the requirement that all hospital emergency rooms make emergency contraception (EC) available to sexual assault survivors and that health plans cover birth control if they offer prescription coverage. Just this week, we released new research about access to EC in Massachusetts ERs, which proves that – even with strong laws on the books – some medical institutions may deny women who have been raped the compassionate care they need and deserve. In short, the new rules are totally unnecessary. Federal law already allows health care institutions and medical personnel who receive federal funding to refuse to provide abortion or sterilization services. And any entity that receives federal health dollars – including state governments – is prohibited from “discriminating” against health care facilities, medical personnel, or insurance plans for refusing to provide, cover, or refer for abortions (the penalties for doing so include loss of federal dollars, like Medicaid, which provide essential health care funding). We applaud Governor Deval Patrick, Attorney General Martha Coakley, and Public Health Commissioner John Auerbach for publicly opposing these rules in the drafting stage, and we urge all of our elected officials to continue to stand behind the Commonwealth’s fair and sensible laws promoting access to reproductive health care. NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts is the state's leading advocate for privacy and a woman's right to choose. # # #
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