News leaked recently that the Bush Administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is drafting a rule that substantially threatens women and families’ access to comprehensive reproductive healthcare.  The nationwide outcry against the draft regulation has been enormous; thousands of people have e-mailed the White House or their members of Congress, written letters to the editor of their local newspaper, or encouraged everyone they know to sign online petitions to fight back against the regulation.  (If you haven’t yet done so, please click here!)

By last week, over one hundred members of Congress had written letters to the White House to declare their opposition to the draft regulation.  That means that the simple action you took to sign a brief online petition added up powerfully to strike a chord with your Congressional members—and convinced them to speak up.

However, the fight against the regulation is far from over. If the rule were to go into effect—which could quite feasibly happen—it would mean that, as soon as two months from now:

• Contraception would be defined as a form of abortion.  This radical change in definition is not only bizarre and contradictory to the well-established scientific definition, but would also leave a dangerous precedent for courts to make contraception—which 98% of American women who have ever had intercourse use at some point in their life—illegal.
• Hospitals, clinics, and other healthcare organizations would have to certify that their doctors and other care providers can refuse not only to perform abortions, but also refuse to administer birth control and other forms of contraception.  Any individual care provider or healthcare organization could subjectively decide what reproductive healthcare services to provide or deny every woman who walks in the door.
• Title X funding, which is allocated to provide comprehensive family planning services to Americans, would become allocated to clinics and organizations that refuse to offer the information and services that millions of women and families use to make well-informed decisions about their reproductive health.  Nearly half of reproductive-age women use services funded by Title X.  The healthcare of those millions of women would be put at risk by the new regulation.
• Survivors of sexual assault who seek care in hospitals could be refused emergency contraception.  In fact, the regulation directly attacks state laws that require hospitals to administer emergency contraception to rape victims.

Nearly 9 out of 10 American adults agree that people should have more access to information about birth control options.  Nearly three-quarters of Americans believe that access to birth control should not be limited by someone’s ability to pay for it. 

Do the math – the vast majority of Americans would not want this regulation to go into effect.  Unfortunately, millions of women and families haven’t even heard of the regulation that could drastically affect their lives in just weeks.

What can you do to stop this regulation from passing?  The simplest way is to take action now, before the draft regulation becomes a full proposal.  If you haven’t already done so, tell your members of Congress that you oppose Bush's attack on women's health.  Take thirty seconds to send that action alert to friends and family.  Blog about it or write a letter to the editor.  And make sure to check back at campusprogress.org for updates!