Sunday 20 July 2008

Hillary Clinton attacks health professionals' right to conscientious objection to abortion and abortifacient birth control

George Bush, the US president, is under fire from Hillary Clinton for seeking to protect doctors’ and nurses’ conscientious objection to abortion, including abortifacient birth control drugs and devices. She reportedly described a Bush administration plan to define several widely used contraception methods as abortion is a "gratuitous, unnecessary insult" to women.

According to Reuters, a copy of a memo that appears to be an Department of Health and Human Services draft carries a broad definition of abortion as any procedures, including prescription drugs, ‘that result in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation.’

Hillary Clinton’s response to the Bush administration’s initiative shows that the “freedom” to choose abortion turns out to be a triple attack on freedom, the freedom of:
  • the unborn to live
  • health professionals and others not to participate in killing innocent human lives, and
  • women and men to know the truth about the abortifacient properties of birth control drugs and devices.
I hope the Bush administration sticks to its guns on this issue.