�California Attorney General Jerry Brown (D) and some family planning advocates on Wednesday said that a draft HHS regulation would prohibit the state from enforcing the state jurisprudence requiring insurance coverage for birth control to women, the San Francisco Chronicle reports (Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle, 8/21). Also on Wednesday, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and MoveOn.org Political Action submitted a petition with more than 325,000 signatures urging HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt to retire the draft rule from consideration, ABC News reports (Barrett, ABC News, 8/20).
According to the Chronicle, the administration drafted the proposition to apply laws prohibiting recipients of federal cash in hand from penalizing health practitioners who reject to perform abortions or provide abortion referrals (San Francisco Chronicle, 8/21). At the newsworthiness conference announcing the request, Ellen Golombek, PPAF frailty president of external affairs, said the draft regulation "would provide providers to withhold critical health tutelage information without telling their patients." According to ABC News, other advocates renowned that the draft "muddies the demarcation between abortion and contraceptive method, and think it an opening for health care providers to more a great deal refuse to prescribe birth control and other forms of contraception and limit women's health care options" (ABC News, 8/20).
The leaked draft rule defines miscarriage as "any of the various procedures -- including the prescription and administration of any drug or the carrying into action of whatsoever procedure or any other action -- that results in the termination of the life of a human existence in utero between excogitation and natural birth, whether before or after implantation" - a definition of abortion that could include many forms of hormonal contraception and intrauterine devices. (Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 8/11).
Brown in an Aug. 4 letter to Leavitt wrote, "By financially punishing baulker states with the loss of (federal) funding, the regulation would intrude on the self-assurance of states to enact and enforce laws that ensure women's access to birth ascendence." California's practice of law, which was passed in 2000 and upheld by the land Supreme Court in 2004, was passed in reception to the decision by some insurance companies to cover male infertility drugs but non oral contraception for women. The legal philosophy exempts christian church employees, merely the state Supreme Court ruled that the bar applies to the 52,000 employees of Catholic hospitals and 1,600 employees of Catholic Charities.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal by Catholic Charities on the California opinion and a similar opinion by the New York Supreme Court. Twenty-five states have laws similar to California's measure, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
If the draft HHS regulation is enacted, it would be a "giant step down a route that will potentially leave behind women with a major loss of access to contraceptive methods," Kathy Kneer, CEO of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, aforesaid. She added that opponents of the rule will continue urging members of Congress and federal officials to stop consonant it from being issued, adding that if they fail they will need the adjacent president to repeal the rule (San Francisco Chronicle, 8/21).
Leavitt in an Aug. 7 web log entry said he has ordered the draft regulation to be rewritten with a narrow focus on allowing wellness care workers to decline to participate in procedures they find objectionable. He also aforesaid that HHS is "silent contemplating if it volition issue a regulation or not. If it does, it will be directly focused on the shelter of practitioner conscience." However, Leavitt did not state what he meant by "practitioner conscience" or the extent to which the protection would allow health care workers to deny services (Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 8/11).
David Stevens, CEO of the Christian Medical and Dental Associations, said many of the group's 15,000 members have been denied jobs or promotions for refusing to perform abortions or prescribe contraceptives that they believe are the equivalent of miscarriage. "There is an organized effort to force health care professionals to do things that violate their conscience," Stevens said. According to the Chronicle, the proposed rule is backed by some other religious organizations opposed to abortion, and it is opposed by the American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and one hundred fifty members of Congress, including Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) (San Francisco Chronicle, 8/21).
Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You pot view the entire Daily Women's Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for electronic mail delivery here. The Daily Women's Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.
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Sunday 31 August 2008
Monday 11 August 2008
Bernie Mac Dies From Pneumonia Complications
Chicago bred comedian Bernie Mac passed away earlier today (August 9) from complications with pneumonia.
Mac had been under hospital care this past week at Northwestern Hospital where he died Saturday.� He was 50 years old.
Mac gained national attention in 1992 after appearing on HBO's Def Comedy Jam and went on to appear in films like Friday and the �Oceans Eleven series.
Mac also had a sitcom titled The Bernie Mac Show which airy from 2001 to 2006.
The brash comedian is survived by his wife, Rhonda McCullough and, their daughter, Je'Niece, a son-in-law and a granddaughter, Jasmine.
�
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Wednesday 6 August 2008
Andy Street and Mach Krys and Jo Azusa and Jerome
Artist: Andy Street and Mach Krys and Jo Azusa and Jerome
Genre(s):
New Age
Discography:
Elements-Desert Light
Year: 2003
Tracks: 12
Spirit Of The Wind
Year: 1999
Tracks: 12
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