What would you do if you arrived at your local pharmacy to pick up your birth control pills and were told, "It's against my religion to fill your prescription"?
In some small towns in the US, this is happening. It's even more likely if you try to fill a prescription for the "morning-after" pill.
A few years ago a teenage friend of my daughters was being treated in a Catholic hospital for an ovarian cyst and was told that the hospital would not give her her birth control pills, prescribed to prevent excessive bleeding.
Just before leaving office, ex-President Bush issued a regulation increasing health care providers' rights to refuse information, counseling, and referrals for contraception and abortion based on their religious beliefs.
President Obama is now in the process of rescinding this increase in rights to refuse service, but he needs lots of letters, emails, and phone calls showing public support for this effort. (Those who are opposed to contraception and abortion are sending messages telling him not to do it.)
For help in sending an email or letter, go the the website for the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice at www.rcrc.org or click on "Take action" below.
White House to Rescind Refusal Regulation!
Take Action!
Express Support to President Obama
The White House has issued a notice that they are taking steps to rescind the Federal Refusal Regulation. This rule, put in place in the closing days of the Bush administration, allows healthcare workers to refuse to provide information, counseling and referrals for abortion and family planning if doing so would violate their religious beliefs. This is a vast and unnecessary expansion of existing refusal clauses that have been in place for more than 30 years.
This notice is just the first step in the process the Obama administration must go through to repeal the rule, and criticism from pressure groups will be loud and constant. Please contact President Obama to express your support for repealing this ideologically-driven regulation that would limit and even deny reproductive health services for women. The voices of pro-choice people of faith must be clear in support of repeal of this unnecessary and harmful regulation.
Peace and Blessings,
Reverend Carlton W. Veazey
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