The Bush Administration's Definition of Abortion May Include Contraception, Rhythm Method, Atkins Diet
Tuesday July 22, 2008
My colleague Linda Lowen calls attention to a bizarre new regulation that the Bush administration is currently considering, which would require any medical facility receiving federal funding to enact a policy allowing employees to opt out of performing abortions. Okay, that makes sense. Except that its definition of abortion is, well, a little broader than usual:
It also opens the door for health care practitioners to refuse to assist female patients who are receiving unrelated treatment that may have the side effect of reducing uterine hospitality. The Atkins diet, for example, has been shown to have this effect in mice. Does this mean that dietitians may refuse to see Atkins patients on the basis that the Atkins diet is, by the Bush administration's unusual definition, a form of abortion? In a word, yes.
When asked about the leaked regulation language, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services replied: "We don’t normally comment on whether we are considering changes in regulations." Under the circumstances, it's easy to see why.
Related: Reproductive Rights 101
The proposal defines abortion as follows: "any of the various procedures — including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action — that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation."This would have the practical effect of reducing access to birth control pills, emergency contraception, and IUDs. And, as if to provide proof that no actual gynecologists were consulted in the drafting of this policy, it would also classify natural family planning as a form of abortion since it often relies on uterine non-habitability rather than non-fertilization. Yes, you heard right: The Bush administration's proposed definition of abortion is so broad that it even includes the Roman Catholic Church's preferred method of birth control (see section 2370).
It also opens the door for health care practitioners to refuse to assist female patients who are receiving unrelated treatment that may have the side effect of reducing uterine hospitality. The Atkins diet, for example, has been shown to have this effect in mice. Does this mean that dietitians may refuse to see Atkins patients on the basis that the Atkins diet is, by the Bush administration's unusual definition, a form of abortion? In a word, yes.
When asked about the leaked regulation language, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services replied: "We don’t normally comment on whether we are considering changes in regulations." Under the circumstances, it's easy to see why.
Related: Reproductive Rights 101
Comments
Addendum: To make this even more nonsensical, the abortion definition suggests that blastocysts can be “in utero” before they are technically implanted in the uterus. That’s quite an accomplishment.
The problem is that many so-called contraceptive methods are actually abortifacients. This law allows for a person who believes that human life begins at conception (not implantation), to avoid participating in a gravely immoral act. The author misrepresents NFP, which simply uses the body’s signals of infertility as a guide. But who would expect the author to accurately portray the moral position.
Dan, regardless of how one makes the decision for NFP, it relies just as much on the rejection of fertilized blastocysts by the uterus as any other form of contraception. Therefore, by this definition, it would certainly qualify as abortion. The Atkins diet, which (unlike EC) has been found to make the uterine environment less hospitable to blastocysts in a controlled study, would also qualify.
It is true, admittedly, that the definition as it is quoted here allows for any method of terminating the growth of a blastocyst to be considered abortion, regardless of implantation. However, in fairness, it should be stated that the vast majority of birth control pills are combination pills that work by inhibiting conception rather than terminating a fertilized egg and thus do not fall under this definition.
Also, I am unable to verify the claim that natural family planning “often relies on uterine non-habitability rather than non-fertilization.” In fact, natural family planning seems to work in most cases by limiting intercourse to times not corresponding to ovulation. Thus this would in fact be non-fertilization.
On the issue of whether or not human life begins before or after implantation, it would seem more scientific to place the beginning at immediate time of conception. It is a valid starting point before which there has been no life-creating union. Any point chosen after this can be labeled as an arbitrary point selected based on time or location, neither of which can be logically used determine whether or not an organism is physically functioning.
Sam, thanks for the very rational post.
Both NFP and birth control pills aim to prevent fertilization of the egg, but in practice both have a failure rate that is compensated for by uterine nonhospitality–a sort of safety net, if you will. (See the “natural family planning” link in the above article.)
I completely agree that the bioethical questions involved in human development are dire, but with respect to the blastocyst we’re still talking about a microscopic zygote that lacks the anatomical and functional characteristics, such as a brain, that define a human being. The only way that a living person could experience death as a blastocyst would be if God implanted the soul at the moment of conception, rather than at the moment of implantation or later. Since 80% of blastocysts fail to implant even when contraceptive methods are not used, this would seem to me to be a very cruel time to implant the soul.
With respect to the viability window, I’m not fond of the viability standard itself (sentience is the criterion we use to determine when it’s wrong to unplug AI; it’s the same criterion we should use to determine when it’s wrong to unplug a fetus). But I do like the fact that it corresponds chronologically with the neuroanatomical standard, which is the one that I find much more persuasive.
While I am not completely comfortable with abortions beyond the first 8-12 weeks of pregnancy (precisely because of the neuroanatomical issue), I think that in order for the government to treat abortion as a crime it must demonstrate that the entity being terminated is a living human person and not merely a potential living human person comprising part of a woman’s body. That standard can be met either by viability or by neocortex development. Both occur around the 22nd week of pregnancy.
Tom,
Check your sources… as a person who has used NFP and researched a lot on the issue, you are mistaken. When a woman does NFP she changes NOTHING in her diet, nor drugs, or anything else that changes her hormones or body’s function. The only thing she does is check her temp and her cervical fluid. This would, in no way, make your uterus unhospitable. If an egg is fertilized before your uterus is ready for it, then you’d simply have an unknown miscarriage. That, in no way, is the same thing has purposely aborting a child.
From what I understand of the bill, it would allow doctors or nurses to refuse giving out things that they disagree with. It probably had in mind the morning after pill… not birth control pills. However, if one nurse doesn’t want to hand those out… I’m certain that someone would be able to find them easily enough through planned parenthood.