Remember the Bush Administration's "conscience rule"? The one that would have allowed health providers to deny patients treatment based on religious grounds? The one that would have allowed pharmacists to deny women access to contraceptives simply because they thought contraceptives were immoral?
I think it was Rachel Maddow who demonstrated the absurdity of the rule by saying it was like offering job security to bus drivers who refused to drive because they had a moral objection to using the gas pedal. The point is: if you're going to work as a medical professional, you have an obligation to your patients to give them the best medical treatment available -- not the best medical treatment as consistent with your personal religious beliefs.
Well, the good news is that the Obama administration never enforced the rule. And the better news is that they are rescinding it:
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Friday rescinded most of a 2008 rule that granted sweeping protections to health care providers who opposed abortion, sterilization and other medical procedures on religious or moral grounds.
Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, said the rule, issued in the last days of the Bush administration, could “negatively impact patient access to contraception and certain other medical services.”
On the one hand, you've got House Republicans working themselves up into a lather passing symbolic bills to ban abortion and restrict access to contraception, bills that they will never see the light of day outside of the House.
On the other hand, you've got President Obama, who is actually going ahead and using the power at his disposal to protect reproductive freedom in a meaningful way.