Romney Changes Hospital Contraception Rules (Removes religious exemption)

AP ^ | December 9, 2005 | GLEN JOHNSON

[NYer]

Gov. Mitt Romney abandoned plans Thursday to exempt Roman Catholic and other private hospitals from a new law requiring them to dispense emergency contraception to rape victims.

Romney had initially backed regulations proposed earlier this week by his public health commissioner, Paul Cote Jr., who said the new law conflicted with an older law barring the state from forcing private hospitals to dispense contraceptive devices or information.

The Republican governor, who is considering a run for president in 2008, said he asked his legal advisers to review the matter after members of both parties criticized the regulations. He said the lawyers determined that the new law superseded the old law and that all hospitals should be required to offer the so-called "morning-after pill."

"On that basis I have instructed the Department of Public Health to follow the conclusion of my own legal counsel and to adopt that sounder view," Romney said.

"In my personal view, it's the right thing for hospitals to provide information and access to emergency contraception to anyone who is a victim of rape," he added.

The new law takes effect Dec. 14. Passed this summer by the Legislature, which then overrode Romney's veto, it states that the pill must be available to "each female rape victim."

Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey, the likely GOP nominee for governor next year if Romney decides not to seek re-election, had broken ranks with the governor on the issue, saying Wednesday that all hospitals should be required to distribute the pill.

Attorney General Tom Reilly, a Democrat planning to run for governor next year, said Romney's initial legal interpretation was "a backdoor regulation" and would not have survived court challenge. He also highlighted the focus of the law: victims of rape.

"It's a horrible thing to happen to anybody," Reilly said. "You don't want to make it any worse, and this administration was on a road that would have made it worse for women in that position."

The emergency contraception pill is a high dose of hormones that women can take up to five days after sex to prevent pregnancy. Opponents who believe life begins at conception contend the pill is little different from an abortion because it blocks the fertilized egg from being implanted on the uterine wall.

Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom had said the governor supported allowing hospitals to opt out on religious or moral grounds because an exemption "respects the views of health care facilities that are guided by moral principles on this issue."

Caritas Christi Health Care, which is owned by the Catholic Church and is the second-largest health care system in New England, said in a statement it provides emergency contraception to female patients, but only those who are not already pregnant.

Critics said the proposed regulations were an attempt by the Romney administration to cater to conservative primary voters.

"I think this has more to do with political ambitions," said state Sen. Susan Fargo, a Democrat who supports the bill. "Unfortunately you can't decide where you are going to be raped so you can be near the best hospital for that."

Seven other states require hospitals to provide emergency contraception to rape victims, and none include exemptions for religious and moral reasons. Three Illinois pharmacists filed a complaint with regulators in that state this week alleging they were dismissed from their jobs after refusing to fill prescriptions for the pill.

[Tax-chick]

In the hospitals I've been in, the maternity areas have been expanding. I know my insurance company is paying out a substantial amount to *somebody*! And there's quite a bit of elective gynecological surgery covered by insurance, as well as the booming infertility industry. Lots of money out there for hospitals.

Certainly one can see how Emergency would be a loss-leader, though. However, if the government takes over emergency services, you don't want to have any emergencies!

[BlackElk]

Whether rapes are violent or not, no one, but no one, has a legally enforceable RIGHT to force Catholic (i.e. private) hospitals to participate in the murder of unborn children. The First Amendment Freedom of Worship protects the Church from such uppity impositions by the likes of Romney and the Taxachusetts legislature or its lavender-luvin' Supremes for that matter.

As to Romney, no babykillers get nominated by the GOP. He is no better than his late "brainwashed" father.

It would also be useful if whoever serves as Prophet of the Mormon Church slap Romney theologically up side of the head for sullying the deservedly fine reputation 0f his co-religionists.

Mormon hospitals do not have to serve coffee, booze or tobacco or kill kids. Catholic hospitals do not have to, cannot and may not kill kids. This is not nuclear physics.

[BlackElk]

Does your post mean that you believe that CATHOLIC hospitals can be FORCED (by "law," no less) to participate in the murder of the innocent unborn to make state representative whazzername "feel" good? First Amendment Freedom to Worship anyone??????

[BlackElk]

Abortion is a violent act too, drastically so, and has even more permanent effects on the unborn.

[Frank Sheed]

You should get VIP service, Mrs. Tax! Something like the old special suites (Clubs) with "tableau riche" that were available only to certain exclusive flyers at airports!

;-o)
Frank

[Tax-chick]

LOL! There was a Catholic hospital in Oklahoma City that would deliver #6-and-higher babies for free, but I only had 4 when we moved to Tulsa.

[Frank Sheed]

Let's take it to court, Mrs. Tax. I'll represent you. Der Prinze will be the Outside Guard.

Frank

PS What are you doing on this board in the middle of a Saturday afternoon only two weeks before Christmas? I figured you'd would be trying to self-clone yourself.

[Tax-chick]

I should add, I had #3 and 4 at Norman Regional, a palatial establishment, conveniently located, but I would have gone to wherever it was for a free delivery of #6 :-).

[Tax-chick]

We are finished shopping, I have about 80% of the Christmas cards done, and my parents left yesterday. I'd be taking my nap now, but Bill got in a fight with Pat and woke James up. I suppose I should go do laundry or something ...

[NeoCaveman]

So long RINO boy.

[Frank Sheed]

You've got mail!

If you did that, I'd be in a thread on the ACLU and that isn't funny any more. How are you doing, kid? What month are you in now?

F

[Tax-chick]

7-1/2. Doing fine except for being old, enormous, and grumpy!

[Lancey Howard]

"requiring them to dispense emergency contraception to rape victims."

So, this law requires these hospitals to keep the stuff in stock in the first place? And every whore in Boston can form a line every night at the emergency room, claim they were "raped", and then get free contraception pills from Roman Catholic emergency rooms? Weird.

[Frank Sheed]

Mrs. Tax, you are not getting older. You are getting better! And, what a great time of year to be carrying a baby! You can sing to Baby Jesus and Baby Whatzizzname!

So the baby is due sometime in early February? A Candlemas Kid!!

F

[A.A. Cunningham]

Chaput explains the difference in his column but if you're still confused then you can ask him yourself:

shepherd@archden.org

What does the CMA have to say about therapeutic abortions?

[Tax-chick]

Before the end of January, I hope. It does give me a real sense of Advent to be pregnant this time of year (for the third time in 5 years). Patrick was born December 22, and by Christmas Eve I was sitting by my tree in a peaceful Percodan fog, watching the snow fall ...

[Tax-chick]

Abp. Chaput either assumes that there is a hormonal or other agent that can actually prevent fertilization post-intercourse, or he's simply theorizing one for discussion purposes.

To the best of my knowledge, there is no hormonal contraceptive, "emergency" or otherwise, that is guaranteed always to prevent ovulation/fertilization, and never to prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg. To me, discussion of the ethical issues involved is misleading unless the biological facts are correctly presented.

[Frank Sheed]

http://www.cathmed.org/index.shtml
Main website

http://www.priestsforlife.org/media/interviewisajiw.htm
Part of an interview with their former president and Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life is below.

I am not sure if things have advanced beyond the position paper I listed above in 2003, but their ethical journal, Linacre Quarterly, is available to peruse online on their website.

I would address this question to them if you are interested. In the meantime, I am not sure if the Bishop of Denver has consulted them or not.

---

G: Actually it’s not. There is no such thing as an abortion to save the life of the mother. As a matter of fact for a while.. several years.. I was very interested in that question in my formative years and I would ask every obstetrician and gynecologist that I met anywhere. And I said have you ever had a case where you had to do something to kill the baby to save the life of the mother. I have not come across one case, you know. People think of in the movie, the story the Cardinal, where the woman was delivering the child and got into complications and they crushed the baby’s head. And that is just not a part of modern medicine. That is not necessary to be done.

Where the confusion arises is the so-called indirect abortion. Or those cases where both mother and child are dying because of a situation, there are really only three situations like this that I can think of and that’s ectopic pregnancy, cancer of the uterus, and perhaps trauma, or an accidental traumatic injury to the uterus. And if you don’t do anything then both mother and child will die. Now if you treat the mother for whatever needs to be treated, the uterus is bleeding, and you remove the uterus and the baby is still in there, and you do nothing to kill the baby, that is if you had a means an artificial incubator, some day we will have it, I’m sure, you could put that baby in there, so in no way do you directly attack the life of the baby. But you can foresee that that baby will lose its life, but it will lose its life anyhow but without directly attacking. Those are the three instances, very rare, very rare, but those are not abortions. If you look at the five ways that abortions are done, which is the only purpose is to kill the child, none of these techniques are the methods used in these operations. So there is no such thing as an abortion necessary.

And you don’t need a law, you don’t need an exception because for ages that treatment of ectopic pregnancy, once the mother starts bleeding or has life-threatening complications, the treatment of cancer of the uterus, that has been always permissible without …having to legalize abortion. So the answer is simply no. There is no such thing as an abortion to save the life of the mother, sometimes early delivery, sometimes it is so early that the baby has a great risk of dying perhaps, but the baby is delivered, the baby is placed into intensive care, is given all the possible support, and may or may make it, but there is no such thing as an abortion to do that.

[Frank Sheed]

BINGO. You really get it, C. I think His Eminence was not fully aware of these implications unless something revolutionary has come out in the last few months. If he is going by the older, standard practices used, he may not know about the CMA and its view of this.

They are an ethical group of medical practioners who have quite a Board of Directors (check the names!). The name of Bishop Vasa made me raise my eyebrows. He is the good Bishop who asked all his catechists to take an oath of fidelity to teach only the Magisterial teachings of the Church. He is my kind of Bishop!

F

[Frank Sheed]

>>>Before the end of January, I hope. It does give me a real sense of Advent to be pregnant this time of year (for the third time in 5 years). Patrick was born December 22, and by Christmas Eve I was sitting by my tree in a peaceful Percodan fog, watching the snow fall ...<<<

That is amazing! What a miracle! You, hubby, 7 kids and little baby "Blaise" all around the Christmas tree adoring Baby Jesus.