14 DAY TRIAL // On Friday, president Obama and his team made the first step towards setting things in the American health care system right, when they announced that they were looking to review and replace the decisions that Bush made before he left the White House. These resolutions basically gave health care employees the possibility to refuse to help people, if the kind of help they wanted was incompatible with their religious beliefs. It makes no sense, the current administration opines, that someone be denied birth control pills or abortion on account of the fact that the medic does not support the use of these pills and procedures in his or her private life.
The Department of Health and Human Services said that the ruling passed by the former president “upset the balance” in the health care system, between the doctor's rights to decline giving health care to women seeking abortion, and the latter's right to choose what they wanted to do with their bodies. And this is one of those conflicts that can only be solved with one part giving up their demands. And, naturally, in this case it was the medics that had to give in, because it was their job and their duty to help people in whichever way they saw fit.
John Boehner, the Republican leader in the House of Representatives, shared that the decision would weaken rules “meant to safeguard the sanctity of human life,” a statement that was met with hostility on the part of abortion rights groups, which upheld that women should have the opportunity to do whatever they wanted with their own bodies, and should be able to choose if they wished to keep a baby or not. Fortunately, Obama and his team agree with them. It's sad that hard-line religious “values” still find their way into the political system, where they can potentially affect millions.
“We recognize and understand that some providers have objections to providing abortions. We want to ensure that current law protects them. But we do not want to impose new limitations on services (...) like family planning and contraception that would actually help prevent the need for an abortion in the first place,” an official from the Department of Health and Human Services asserted.
“Today's action by the Obama administration demonstrates that this president is not going to stand by and let women's health be placed in jeopardy,” the head of the Planned Parenthood Federation, Cecile Richards, stated on Friday. “Women and men who depend on these services cannot afford for their access to counseling, education, contraception and preventive health screenings to be limited by this extreme rule,” the head of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, Mary Jane Gallagher, added and called the move an “important step” for America.