Pill-Popping Idiocy

Feministing has been on this for awhile, but the MSM in the guise of the Wall Street Journal has started to pick up on it too. There's a draft regulation being pushed by the Bush Administration out there that would define most common types of birth control as 'abortion.' To whit:

A draft regulation, still being revised and debated, treats most birth-control pills and intrauterine devices as abortion because they can work by preventing fertilized eggs from implanting in the uterus. The regulation considers that destroying "the life of a human being."

ARGH! Crap like this is part of the reason I'm a lapsed Catholic. I can't stand religious, moralistic people getting all up in arms about friggin' birth control! I'm sorry, but someone needs to explore the morality of bringing a baby into the world when neither parent is ready for one and it can't be cared for properly. Is that moral? What about a baby that just plain isn't wanted? Is that a moral act, bringing an unwanted life into the world?

This is just another attempt by the Republican Party to a. undermine the rights of women and b. pander to their base. I just wish they didn't have to co-opt the reproductive rights of every woman in the country to do it.

Oh and plus, there's more idiocy:

The regulation's stated purpose is to improve enforcement of existing federal laws that protect some medical professionals' right to refuse to participate or assist in abortion.

In a lengthy preamble entitled "The Problem," the draft argues that state laws too often coerce health-care workers into providing services they find immoral.

Among the laws considered coercive: Requirements that emergency rooms offer rape victims the morning-after pill, insurance plans cover contraception as part of prescription-drug benefits, and pharmacists fill prescriptions for birth control. The draft regulation would weaken these laws by expanding the right of conscientious objection

I'm sorry... conscientious objection? In the health care industry? This is bullshit of the highest order to me. Religious beliefs are wonderful things to have, but if my religious beliefs prevent me from say, reporting for duty in the case of a military draft, my ass gets sent to jail. I don't see why medical professionals deserve protections from stuff they consider immoral. It's not their place to decide what's moral for their patient. I don't want some Doctor telling me he can't give me certain drugs to save my life because he considers it immoral. That's not his job. His job is to treat the patient in front of him. Birth control pills, drugs, condoms, whatever. And under the law, quite frankly, he shouldn't have a choice about it. Not his drugs, not his body, not his choice. End of discussion.

If conscientious objection to military service is an offense punishable by jail time, it should be the same for pharmacists who refuse to proscribe certain drugs. Withholding treatments for moral reasons just strikes me as... immoral.