This has already been posted at DU, but I think it bears posting again, plus I have a serious question that I hope someone can answer. (I also just posted at the Choice topic forum, for a longer-lived visibility, hopefully.)
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idU... NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Bush administration plan to define several widely used contraception methods as abortion is a "gratuitous, unnecessary insult" to women and faces tough opposition, Sen. Hillary Clinton said on Friday.
The former Democratic presidential candidate joined family planning groups to condemn the proposal that defines abortion to include contraception such as birth control pills and intrauterine devices.
It would cut off federal funds to hospitals and states where medical providers are obligated to offer legal abortion and contraception to women.
it continues...
The planned rule is aimed at countering recent state laws enacted to ensure that women can get contraception when they want or need it. It also would help protect the rights of medical providers to refuse to offer contraception.
Clinton said she has written a letter with Patty Murray, a Democrat senator from Washington, to Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt asking him to reconsider and reject the release of the proposed rules.
She also urged people to sign a petition on her website, www.hillpac.com, against the proposed changes.
But (this is not my question, just an observation), I went to both hillpac.com and hillaryclinton.com and found nothing about it. I was hoping to find some more specific details, like the full text of the proposed change.
Now here is my question:
Normally, or at least often, a "proposed rule change" to a federal regulation is subject to public comment, and the proposed change is published as a docket at regulations.gov. Any member of the public can then submit a comment to that docket via an online form.
It seems to me that one action we should take on this rule change, besides signing a "petition" at any politician's site (although we should do that too), is to comment on the proposed rule change through the formal process for doing so.
However, I cannot find any docket for the Dept of Health and Human Services that seems to relate. I searched for all recent dockets from HHS as well as a text search on "utero" based on this excerpt from the article, which gives some of the apparently proposed language:
A copy of a memo that appears to be an Department of Health and Human Services draft provided to Reuters this week 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."
So: does anyone here know more details about this "proposed rule"? Is it subject to public comment, and if so why isn't it a docket at regulations.gov? And if not subject to public comment, why not?
Please k&r if you think this issue is important. Thanks.
