Reproductive rights advocates and legislative leaders called on Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty on Tuesday to urge the Bush administration to abandon a proposal that could jeopardize access to emergency birth control for women who have been raped. Minnesota lawmakers overwhelmingly passed legislation last year to ensure the availability of emergency contraception in such cases, but under the Bush administration's proposed regulations, those women could be denied the appropriate treatment.

The rule "could make it easier for health-care institutions and individuals to deny contraceptive services to women who need them," legislative leaders wrote in a letter to Pawlenty. "The regulation is so overly broad in scope that it could undermine state laws that seek to ensure the availability of these services, even those laws that protect survivors of rape and sexual assault."

Under the proposed rules, programs receiving federal funds from the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) would have to certify that their employees can decline to perform an abortion or dispense birth control if they have moral or religious objections. Critics say the rules confuse abortion and birth control.

The rules define abortion as "any of the various procedures - including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action - that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation."

Emergency contraception medications use high doses of hormones to delay ovulation and prevent fertilization. Research indicates that the use of emergency contraception may cause an embryo to fail to implant on the uterine wall, an event that anti-abortion activists say is the same as abortion.

The Bush regulations would take that uncertainty and codify it in law. Because abortion opponents see emergency contraception as akin to abortion -- despite lack of conclusive evidence to support those claims -- under the proposed rules, they may take a religious or moral exception to emergency contraception.

House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher said the proposal "is really out of the mainstream from how Minnesota women think about birth control and how Minnesotans think of emergency contraception."

Donna Dunn, Executive Director of the Minnesota Coalition Against Sexual Assault, said in a statement Tuesday, "We must protect barrier-free access to emergency contraception so that a survivor may be able to give up that particular fear as she weighs the other post-rape fears. While many may argue the various aspects of the language of DHHS' proposed rules, we want to stand firm and say that victims/survivors of sexual assault should not be pawns in this debate."

In the letter to Pawlenty, legislators wrote, "This proposed regulation is of particular concern to us because women who need contraception may be unable to access it, and that would of course lead to unintended pregnancies. For instance, this regulation would almost certainly negate the benefits of our state's law that guarantees that survivors of rape and sexual assault have information about and access to emergency contraception in hospital emergency rooms."

The letter continued, "This proposed regulation will not only lead to unintended pregnancies, but will contravene the laws of our state. We urge you now to ask the Bush administration not to advance this flawed and unnecessary public policy."

The letter was signed by Reps. Margaret Anderson Kelliher, Tom Huntley, Carolyn Laine, Tim Mahoney, Erin Murphy, Linda Slocum, Paul Thissen, Tom Tillberry and Neva Walker, and Sens. Linda Berglin, John Marty, Sandy Pappas, and Patricia Torres Ray.

"Last year, legislators on both sides of the debate over reproductive rights united behind a measure that provides rape survivors with the emergency contraception that could help prevent a pregnancy after a violent attack," said Linnea House, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Minnesota. "Gov. Pawlenty recognized the strong public support behind this common sense measure and signed it into law. Now, just one year after the law took effect, we are urging him to call on the Bush administration to stop an attack on birth control that would undermine this state law."

Related Posts

Read more about the Bush administration's draft regulations classifying birth control as here.

• An Outrageous Attempt to Undermine Women's Rights, Sen. Hillary Clinton
• War on Contraception and Science Going Strong, Susan Wood
  
• HHS Moves to Define Contraception as Abortion, Cristina Page
• Proposal Only Latest Attempt to Redefine Abortion, Amie Newman
• Will McCain Also Define Contraception as Abortion?, Nancy Keenan