The facts on the “conscience clause”
It’s being reported that President Obama will revoke a midnight-hour Bush administration Health and Human Services rule change. The so-called “conscience clause” is a federal protection (issued in December and implemented in January) to health-care workers who refuse to provide care that violates their personal, moral or religious beliefs.
One of many problems with this poorly-written “conscience clause” is confusion about its scope: the vagueness of the rule could lead it to limiting everything from HIV tests to blood transfusions to emergency contraception for rape victims
Problems with the rule change had already begun cropping up. Two alarming examples from the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology:
In one, a Virginia mother of two became pregnant because she was denied emergency contraception. In another, a rape victim in Texas had her prescription for emergency contraception rejected by a pharmacist.
While some on the right are claiming this a rabid pro-choice move, we beg to differ.
First of all, revisiting the Bush “conscience clause” rule does NOT mean that providers who object to performing abortions will have to provide them. No provider will have to perform abortions against their will. There is a 30-year history of legislation (three separate laws in fact) that protects such providers. (Someone needs to tell FRC, since Tony Perkins thinks “…President Obama is planning to bow down to pro-abortion forces [to] stop enforcement of laws enacted to protect the choice of healthcare providers not to participate in abortion.”)
The “conscience clause” is not only vague and potentially harmful to patients, but it also undermines the goal of reducing abortions because it potentially blocks women’s access to services like birth control. Consider: 98% of women of child-bearing age, who have ever had sexual intercourse, have used some form of contraception. Obviously, contraception is key to preventing unintended pregnancies. Preventing access to contraception runs counter to the Obama administration’s clearly stated goal of preventing unintended pregnancies and reducing abortions.
Also important to note: HHS is holding a 30-day comment period, open to the public. The Obama Administration is concerned about the consequences of the scope of the Bush “conscience clause,” but they also understand the need to clarify the existing rules and want to fully understand and address the concerns of providers.
I just don’t think Jesus ever intended this oppressive inference with the liberties of others. That we the Believers have decided to make Jesus our choice does not grant us free reign to cram our decision down the throats of an unchurched godless nation. That is not what being a beacon to the dying world is all about. Furthermore, we will prevent women from aborting the fetuses who become the children we go on to deny healthcare, education, jobs, or even the love of the faithful who justify their social and ethnic bigotry by twisting their favorite passages of the Bible to unfairly condemn the already downtrodden more deeply into hopelessness.
Jesus came that we might have abundant life, not to condemn those who struggle to escape the darkness. Let’s be fair: abortion is usually a very last resort, not a decision causually reached by giggling girlfriends over ginger ale, tuna, and crackers at Mary Kaye or Tupperware parties. There are very few women terminating pregnancies for the frivolous reasons too many televangelists routinely suggest are the case. Were there other options, trust me, these poor souls would take them. The fact is that women who abort pregnancies see no other way out – PERIOD! These women, like anyone else, want to know there is really something better for them. They too are awaiting and wanting the promise of increase, blessings, and honor. Unfortunately, that better way of abudant life Jesus offered in His Message of Good News has been dismissed by the judgemental as little more than liberal communist crazy talk from godless lefties en route to hell for going completely against the exhaustive dominionist dissertations on the Prayer of Jabez recently canonized. As far as these tearse, obtuse religio-fascist lobotomites are concerned, women are only SAVED through childbirth.
Face it, for all their blustering condemnation and inflictions of guilt, the judgemental are never going to offer to aid in loosening the binds that suppress poor women. The judgemental all but relish GOD’s wrath on women deemed to be willful sinners. The judgemental are still into burning women alive for their witchcraft and stoning women caught in fornication as harlots for sins of their flesh. The judgemental are never going to raise the children of women whom they have denied an abortion. The judgemental are not going to step in to help an abused wife whose petulently insecure husband is using annual impregnation as his trusted means of controlling her miserable life. In the eyes of these patriachal hypocritical Pharissees, a woman’s whole lot in life is to bear children, whether it’s her choice, GOD’s Will, or NEITHER. This is such a harsh injustice to women. Were the male heads of these religio-fascist institutions able to be impregnated, birth control and abortions would be made readily available in the all-purpose facilities of these esteemed institutions for an affordable $3.00 love gift to the ministry, if not made a holy sacrement of the faith.
Laws that aid and abade these overbearing herds of bigoted Jesus Camp lobotomites in the insane deprivation of women their CONSTITUTIONAL right to pursue and receive healthcare, medication, or birth control options, just because a woman’s rights and will conflict with the politically reactionary dogma of human institutions of religion which have cloaked themselves for ages behind deceptive misinterpretations of passages of the Bible, ARE OUT OF LINE WITH THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTIONAL SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE, AND THEREFORE SHOULD BE BANNED!!! The truth is none of this anti-abortion clap-trap has anything to do with faith or the true Divine Will and Purpose GOD has ordained for humanity. It’s all about the oppression and control of women by presumptuous patriarchal dominionists who are ambitiously seeking a place in GOD right next to Jesus at the right hand of the FATHER in a glorious eternity where women are still subjectively objectified chattel property of men. This ridiculous heretical malarky is not only UNCONSTITUTIONAL, but it also has no basis whatsoever in the teachings or the Gospel of Jesus. It’s therefore ANTICHRIST and ANATHEMA!