[Pflienews] PharmFacts E-News Update: HHS reneges, bows to abortoholics

[PFLI PharmAid Center]

*PharmFacts E-News Update -- 8 Aug 2008 AD

*

*MEDIA RELEASE*

*FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE*
08 August 2008
CONTACT: Katie Walker
540.659.4942| kwalker at all.org <mailto:kwalker at all.org> 

*H.H.S. RENEGES ON FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE PROPOSAL
*

*Washington, DC (08 August 2008)* -- A U.S. Department Health and Human 
Services proposed regulation that would protect freedom of conscience 
for pro-life physicians and pharmacists will be rewritten to reflect 
pro-abortion demands.

"Why is Secretary Mike Leavitt kowtowing to birth control companies and 
abortion activists?" asked Jen Catelli, American Life League director of 
media relations. "If he is seeking to protect conscience rights of those 
who want nothing to do with abortion, he needs to recognize that 
contraceptives can cause abortions."

A widely circulated draft of the HHS proposal would have defined 
abortion to include the birth control pill, thus protecting pro-life 
pharmacists from dispensing abortion-causing drugs like the pill.

The proposed regulation defined abortion as "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."

Upon release of the proposal, pro-abortion activists, including Planned 
Parenthood Federation of America, NARAL Pro-Choice America and drug 
companies that produce birth control collaborated in an organized 
lobbying campaign against the proposal.

Three weeks later Leavitt, who says he wants to protect conscience 
rights of physicians, is backing down: "An early draft of the 
regulations found its way into public circulation before it had reached 
my review," Leavitt said on his blog. "It contained words that lead some 
to conclude my intent is to deal with the subject of contraceptives, 
somehow defining them as abortion. Not true."

"The truth is that life begins at creation, and anything that destroys 
that life is an abortion," Catelli said. "We hope Mr. Leavitt will have 
the courage to stand for truth against abortion advocates."

The final draft of the proposal has not yet been issued.

*FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Reuters:* HHS Chief Denies New Rule Attacks Contraception (7 August 2008)
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0734863820080807 
<http://nvs.all.org/sendstudio/link.php?M=42879&N=402&L=1765&F=H>

*The Associated Press:* Official Says New Rules Are Not Anti Birth 
Control (7 August 2008)
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hRAzTceSVpUdFDosQqzkDNCzFqwgD92DNLL00 
<http://nvs.all.org/sendstudio/link.php?M=42879&N=402&L=1766&F=H>
*
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