Comments | neadods: The 30-Day Comment Period is Still Open

neadods

The 30-Day Comment Period is Still Open

Sep 01, 2008 07:14

If you're American, care about women's rights, and have not yet emailed or written, the 30-day comment period on the Department of Health and Human Services Proposed Regulation Ensuring that DHHS Funds Do Not Support Coercive or Discriminatory Policies is still open. (HTML version here.)

I have talked about this before.

There have been many ( Read more... )

politics, talibangelicals, feminism

Comments 17

Whoa... thefannishwaldo September 1 2008, 13:34:21 UTC

I just sent in my feedback (it's reproduced in my LJ). I went on something of a tear.

Re: Whoa... neadods September 2 2008, 00:06:03 UTC

Good for you! I think the objections you bring up at the end are very valid, too. It is a natural extension of this nonsense.

Re: Whoa... amilyn September 2 2008, 02:03:17 UTC

Arg...I was trying to find your comments and couldn't. Are they locked (which I would totally understand and respect)?

Also, your email to Hallmark? Work of beauty.

I'm hopeful for you re: National Board in November.

Re: Whoa... thefannishwaldo September 2 2008, 02:10:48 UTC

#1. I've unlocked it now. I have things set to default=lock because mom has an LJ now to read fanfic from and I just worry that I'll break her brain some day if she trips over my LJ. But there's nothing in that post that I wouldn't tell her I said. :)

#2. Thanks. Too bad, apparenlty, they didn't actually go through. Gr.

#3. Thanks. You'll hear me screaming for joy or crying from whereever you are when the results come out. :)

amilyn September 1 2008, 18:28:45 UTC

I wasn't going to respond to this post per se, but I don't want the fic post to get less attention. I read every bit of this, have linked to it, and wrote to the DHHS a week or so ago.

This is beyond so amazingly wrong.

neadods September 2 2008, 00:05:04 UTC

I've been holding for later in the comment period so that they realize that there's long-term dissent, not just a knee-jerk and forget. Thank you for the link. I think the Noeson story really needs to get out there as an example of exactly what's going on that can't be ignored as a "what if" that will never happen.

amilyn September 2 2008, 01:58:32 UTC

I plan to call sometime this week. It's horrifying. And I was even more upset to find that my mom (who is a nurse) thought I was being insensitive for saying that someone should not have a "conscience" way "out" of providing care and doing their JOB in a country without a theocracy (and may that remain more the case than it has been lately...). I pointed out that I didn't believe she would ever withhold INFORMATION about possible treatment or a referral to someone who COULD, in good conscience, provide that care or information, even if she objected to something.

Course, that wasn't as horrifying to me as listening to my birthmother last summer tell me that she thinks the war in Iraq is for the purpose of providing a distraction so that no one attacks the U.S. (which I can see as part of the reasoning) and that (here's the part that almost made me leave the room) she thought that was fine and dandy because our children are "more important" than their children and so it was OKAY for their children and people to die. I disagreed, ( ... )

neadods September 2 2008, 10:16:01 UTC

thought I was being insensitive for saying that someone should not have a "conscience" way "out" of providing care and doing their JOBOh, Leavitt and his religious masters have done a brilliant job of framing. It's all about hurting the widdle feelings of the caregivers... and never about the care they're not giving, the rights of their own patients, or even (as the Noeson story points out) the rights of their employees and coworkers ( ... )

Thread 5

moropus September 1 2008, 23:16:59 UTC

I have done this. I think people who want to be in the medical field and not deal with birth control should limit themselves to areas such as geriactrics, where it is not an issue.

Refusing to answer the phone is a bit over the top. I'm going to go away and swear.

neadods September 2 2008, 00:03:52 UTC

The real issue is forcing women to comply to their beliefs, of course, on the basis that they're being discriminated against if they can't discriminate.

I think the Noeson story is very important to get out because it's not a "what if" story that can be handwaved as "hysterical." It's an account of exactly how far one person has taken his objections, all of which would be permissible according to the proposed regulation.

wendymr September 2 2008, 02:37:48 UTC

Thanks for writing this post and your previous one on the subject. I'm not, obviously, submitting comments to the addresses supplied, as I'm not a resident of the US, but I did read both posts and was absolutely appalled as a result.

And here's my 'conscientious objection': I hate guns and believe that they should be banned, so does that mean I, if I were a member of a medical profession, should have the right to refuse to treat a gunshot victim?

This is not only ridiculous (and leaving the door open to all sorts of other 'conscientious objections', such as not treating gays or black people or anyone whose politics you disagree with), but it's appallingly sexist and will impact most those women who already have the least choice in their lives. Me, I've got a relatively good income and if my local pharmacist was an 'objector' I'd just drive somewhere else. Women on no or low incomes don't have that choice.

This sucks. Good luck making sure it doesn't happen!

neadods September 2 2008, 10:23:57 UTC

nd leaving the door open to all sorts of other 'conscientious objections', such as not treating gays or black people or anyone whose politics you disagree with

Or their lifestyle (single women with pregnancies) or their religion... It's the top of a very slippery slope indeed, and that Leavitt wants to be able to take Government money while not providing equal services for all is the real kicker for this.

It's not even as if there aren't alternatives - there's a "pro-life pharmacy" downtown that provides everything BUT family planning counseling and meds. But that's not enough.

I keep thinking - the March for Women's Lives was the biggest rally EVER held on the Mall. In all the pictures of all the events down there, you've never seen such a crowd of people. And yet it's as if that never happened. As if tax money could and should be used to pay people who discriminate.

A complete stranger has to say: malignantdaisy September 2 2008, 07:21:00 UTC

Thank you so much for posting this. I live in Wisconsin and I am totally arming my letters with this information.

It looks like there was a proposed bill before the Wisconsin legislature in 2003 that would have gotten people like this guy off the hook, but it does not seem to have passed, fortunately.

Re: A complete stranger has to say: neadods September 2 2008, 10:29:07 UTC

Please arm away, and please feel free to link any and everywhere - I think that the DHHS's attitude about "what if" stories is that the people making them up are just being fanciful. Pointing to "has happened" and the burden placed on patients, coworkers, and employers ought to be much more effective.

I didn't know about the bill. I'm glad it didn't pass.