A warning to women wanting health options

Today's New York Times features an important warning to women who want all the health options available to them at a time of crisis.

The column, written by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and the director of Planned Parenthood of America, is another example of the Bush administration's failure to consider women as full human beings with rights to be protected.

While the matter is abortion in regards to the latest Bush policy, the trend is to take away choice from women on even more matters beyond their womb. No one likes abortion, even people who are pro-choice. Some of the most moral people I know are pro-choice. No one deserves the label of pro-life.

The issue is not about taking life. It is giving women the option to choose what is best for their health. And no one, no government or no religion should interfere in the the almost sacred relationship between doctor and patient. A doctor takes an oath to first do no harm. No government or religious official does the same.

In conversations I have had with some conservative women away from their more vocal conservative husbands, they've quietly expressed a desire that they have all the medical options avialable to them and their doctors at a moment of crisis.

After a baby is born, conservatives have shown themselves as deserters of life, not defenders. When it comes to programs to support this new life, they cry "foul". They tell the mom and baby to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, even though they may not have a boot. They cry "personal accountability" for one's actions, yet their desertion of this life goes unmentioned. The outrageous list goes on and on.

So here is the column. It is a must read,

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/19/opinion/19clinton.html?_r=1&em&oref=slogin