Sarah T. Schwab
OBSERVER Columnist

The pharmacist’s glasses were low on his nose as he reviewed my prescription order; finally he looked up into my eyes with a dismayed look.
“I’m sorry, young lady, but your refills will no longer be free,” he said. He explained that my birth control pills would now cost a minimum of $85 per monthly refill.
Unable to afford this, I asked the pharmacist why my once free prescription had raised so dramatically; so suddenly.
“Because, I don’t believe it is right for women to take oral contraceptives,” the pharmacist answered. “It’s abortion. And, therefore should not be covered under your insurance.”

This is a hypothetical situation.
My mother recently gave me a pile of newspaper clippings that would spark ideas for my writing. The Aug. 9 article in The Buffalo News titled, “Health secretary denies plan to limit methods of birth control,” was at the top of the pile.
What the article explained: the above scenario (and worse) could be more than just a theoretical situation for women in the near future.
The Bush Administration is primed to place new barriers on women accessing common forms of contraception like birth control pills, emergency contraception and IUDs by labeling them “abortion” in a draft regulation that was leaked a few weeks ago.
In a lengthy introduction entitled “The Problem,” the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services argues that state laws coerce health-care workers into providing services they find immoral.
To make sure that clinics and healthcare facilities around the country will not “discriminate” against doctors or other staff who would otherwise withhold contraception, the draft argues that most birth-control devices be labeled as abortion because they can prevent fertilized eggs from implanting in the uterus.
“This,” the draft deems, is destroying “the life of a human being.”
(Among the laws considered coercive: requirements that emergency rooms offer rape victims Plan B (the “morning after pill”), insurance plans that cover contraception as part of prescription-drug benefits, and pharmacists fill prescriptions for birth control).
As long as the 1973 case Roe v. Wade (the Supreme Court decision overturning a Texas interpretation of abortion law and making abortion legal in the United States) remains in effect, the draft regulation would have no immediate effect on the legality of birth controls if implemented. However, it could weaken many state laws designed to promote easy access to these methods of birth control, used by more than 12 million women a year.
If the draft regulations were to prompt some insurance companies to drop coverage for prescription birth control, “that would be fantastic,” Tom McClusky, a strategist with the conservative Family Research Council, told the Wall Street Journal.
These rules pose a serious threat to providers and uninsured and low-income women seeking care: they could prevent providers of federally-funded family planning services from guaranteeing their patients access to comprehensive family planning services and also build significant barriers to education, counseling, preventive health services and contraception.
The draft regulation blurs the distinction between abortion and birth control while simultaneously discriminating against women; by blocking or denying women from easily and safely obtaining contraception – while never considering male contraceptives (such as condoms) as “abortion” – is obvious sexual discrimination.
No type of contraception, whether male or female should be taken away from Americans because it is unrealistic to think that men and women will remain chaste (especially when so many young adults are being raised in an (ignorance-)/abstinence-only educational environment).
Moreover, by specifically attacking women and their rights to protect their body goes beyond irresponsibility – it is pure ignorant maliciousness.
With the election months away, the next President can push the Bush Administration’s draft forward or into a shredder.
I hope women are as outraged as me that the above scenario (or worse) could happen to them, their daughters, family, friends and strangers.
I hope that that anger drives people to vote for a president who believes that men and fertilized eggs do not have more rights than women.
If people do not speak up about this discrimination, then that will be “the problem.”

Originally published Sunday, August 31, 2008