From Last-minute Bush abortion ruling causes furor :
A last-minute Bush administration plan to grant sweeping new protections to health care providers who oppose abortion and other procedures on religious or moral grounds has provoked a torrent of objections, including a strenuous protest from the government agency that enforces job-discrimination laws.
The proposed rule would prohibit recipients of federal money from discriminating against doctors, nurses and other health care workers who refuse to perform or to assist in the performance of abortions or sterilization procedures because of their “religious beliefs or moral convictions.”
It would also prevent hospitals, clinics, doctors’ offices and drugstores from requiring employees with religious or moral objections to “assist in the performance of any part of a health service program or research activity” financed by the Department of Health and Human Services. . . .
The protest from the [Equal Employment Opportunity] commission [which says their current rules are sufficient] comes on the heels of other objections to the rule by doctors, pharmacists, hospitals, state attorneys general and political leaders, including President-elect Barack Obama.Obama has said the proposal will raise new hurdles to women seeking reproductive health services, like abortion and some contraceptives.
Some of you have said that a president’s views on abortion do not matter. We’ll see.
