Up Yours, Bush!

The Bush administration will not go quietly. The latest "eff-you" to women in America is the attempt to redefine certain methods of contraception as abortion.

The San Jose Mercury News posted an editorial earlier this week that pretty much sizes it all up.

President Bush has spent his eight years in office fighting a social war against American women's right to choose. Now he is orchestrating one last campaign to try to curb abortion. This is one surge that must be defeated.

The Bush administration knows it can't win this fight in Congress. So its latest effort is a draft proposal by the Department of Health and Human Services that purports to clarify workers' rights to refuse to provide abortions.

The new rules define abortion as "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."

It doesn't take a medical expert to know that definition includes birth control pills, IUDs and "Plan B" emergency contraception. Sen. Hillary Clinton said that if birth control is defined as abortion, it would permit individuals and health-care corporations to refuse to provide family planning.

The new regulations could also invalidate California's and a dozen other states' laws that ensure women's access to safe, affordable contraceptives.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have joined in the fight to get Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt to reject the draft proposal. They should make clear to President Bush that his final effort to block women's right to choose is destined to fail.

With 171 days left in this administration, it is obvious we can't take our eyes off the ball. Apparently his legacy as worst president ever isn't as well established as he thinks it should be and there is still more damage to be done.