Sioux City Journal

A sneak attack on a woman's right to choose

Posted: Thursday, September 04, 2008

SIOUX CITY -- Once again, the Bush administration has mounted a sneak attack on a woman's right to choose. A proposed new rule undermines state laws and gives employees of health care organizations the right to refuse to perform any part of their job to which they are personally, due to religious or personal conviction, opposed. Worse yet, employers are prohibited from inquiring of prospective employees whether they have any personal beliefs that would interfere with the work they are expected to perform.

As an example, a pharmacy runs the risk of hiring someone who refuses to dispense birth control pills or other contraceptives. If an organization attempts corrective action, it could lose its ability to provide federal assistance programs to its patients; and losing federal assistance would deny many women access to needed health care.

President Bush and his allies have made it clear they do not believe women have the intelligence or ethical judgment to make their own moral decisions. This rule is just another step toward making women, especially in rural areas where there is limited access to health facilities, wards of a paternalistic government.

You elected your representatives in Washington to listen to your concerns. Let them know you are concerned. -- Jeanne Hecker

Story Comments

VegasRage wrote on Oct 4, 2008 10:15 PM:

" Jennifer its going to get interesting when world population becomes an issue. It's been estimated we will peak at 12 billion and trail back and maintain at 9 billion. I don't think that is going to be painless.

Even for those who don't believe those numbers none can refute we are in trouble. It took all of human time to reach our current population of roughly 7 billion, in 1970 we were at roughly 3.6 billion. So we have nearly doubled our population in just 40 years, it won't take but another 40 before we are hitting what this world can sustain.

We are on the tail end of an exponential growth curve. I wonder how the dogmatic right for life will look at birth control then and abortion. They curse China for their one child policy yet their is good reason for the policy.

They would have the world populate until there were too many and be left with the dreadful reality of starvation to be te method of population reduction. Oddly similar parallels could be made to the financial mess we are now in. "

Jennifer wrote on Oct 4, 2008 6:52 AM:

" PBaker wrote on Oct 3, 2008 7:54 PM:
" As usual, it is mostly men who are against abortion. Guess they want to make sure there are plenty of kids around for them to molest. "

PBaker you are an Idiot, as you prove by your stupid comment. Is is a proven fact that as of now, the majority of women are against abortion as well. "

VegasRage wrote on Oct 4, 2008 12:00 AM:

" Wow that is a lot bruised ego I see here on this posting board. I debunk your silliness Frank, Brad or whatever your flavor of the day name is and you just lose it.

The world is a big diverse place, how are you going to handle it if you can't deal with one anonymous poster on the Internet? "

PBaker wrote on Oct 3, 2008 7:54 PM:

" As usual, it is mostly men who are against abortion. Guess they want to make sure there are plenty of kids around for them to molest. "

Jennifer wrote on Oct 3, 2008 5:43 AM:

" Rather than make the apologies made Necessary by his false accusations. Vegasrage runs away and hides like the typical left wing lunatic that he is.

Adults admit their mistakes vegasrage. "