Bush wants birth control clinics to hire nurses and docs who won't provide birth control

The Bush administration wants recipients of federal health dollars, like family planning clinics, to be forced to hire doctors and nurses who refuse to provide birth control.

In the proposal, obtained by The New York Times, the administration says it could cut off federal aid to individuals or entities that discriminate against people who object to abortion on the basis of “religious beliefs or moral convictions.”

The proposal defines abortion as follows: “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.”

Mary Jane Gallagher, president of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, which represents providers, said, “The proposed definition of abortion is so broad that it would cover many types of birth control, including oral contraceptives and emergency contraception.”

“We worry that under the proposal, contraceptive services would become less available to low-income and uninsured women,” Ms. Gallagher said.

They certainly would. Under this rule, clinics like Planned Parenthood could be forced to hire nurses and doctors who would then refuse to provide birth control to patients, or lose their federal birth control funding. Either way, poor and uninsured women are screwed out of their birth control.