ACTUAL IMPORTANT SHIT

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due to this is the failiest day of my life and my hands hurt, i am copy-pasting w/permission from cidercupcakes very fine post about this.

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This is the Bush Administration's HHS bill that will allow doctors to refuse health care to women seeking abortions, or even birth control. It is not a draft. It is scheduled to go into effect within thirty days. naamah_darling has ways you can act here -- please, please, please do so. There's a form letter already filled out; just fill in your home address and they'll do all the work of figuring out who your legislators are and send it for you. If you're not American, use the option to write to HHS, or, if you've got a little bit to spare, donate to Planned Parenthood. If you do nothing else, write to consciencecomment@hhs.gov with the subject "provider conscience regulation"; the bill must go through a thirty-day public comment period, so expressing your opinion can help.

I am absolutely in favor of a person's right not to do something that they think is unconscionable, and to express their opinions freely. But free speech doesn't mean there are no consequences to that speech, which is what's going on here. Free speech carries with it a lot of burdens, and the HHS is attempting to get rid of those.

Further, I'd like to call your attention to this quote from the bill:

This regulation does not limit patient access to health care, but rather protects any individual health care provider or institution from being compelled to participate in, or from being punished for refusal to participate in, a service that, for example, violates their conscience.

I don't like to play the "slippery slope" card, because I'm a history major who has nothing else to do with her degree but get annoyed with people who say that Bush's America is "just like [dictatorship]". This, however, is an incredibly fucking dangerous precedent to set. What if doctors begin deciding that they have moral objections to Islam? To gays? How far will they be allowed to go in refusing to do their jobs?

I would also note that there's been no move to restrict Viagra prescriptions, or to discourage insurance companies (many of which will not cover birth control or the HPV vaccine) from covering it -- it's only women's attempts to control their own health that have come under attack.

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i have sent moneys to planned parenthood and that takes you to a form letter you can customise and send to the HHS; also i sent a letter to my senator (republican so probably useless but still) via the links in naamah_darling's post. GO FORTH, TAKE ACTION AND SHIT.