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HHS Secy. Mike Leavitt

In mid-July, a draft ruling (HHS-45-CFR) defining contraception as abortion leaked out of the Department of Health and Human Services. Considering its import, the ruling, which would not require congressional approval to become operative, was given remarkably little notice in the press until the Houston Chronicle editorialized on it this week (“Redefining Abortion”) and various pro-choice, pro-life, family planning, and political organizations jumped into action. HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt, the only Cabinet-level official with a  self-written blog, commented (way too cavalierly, IMO), “I’m delighted to announce that with the help of Planned Parenthood, my blog—for the first time—received more visits than my teenage son’s MySpace page.”

In its Summary, HHS-45-CFR reads:

The Department of Health and Human Services proposes to promulgate regulations to ensure that, in accordance with the Church Amendments and the Weldon Amendment, Department funds do not support morally coercive or discriminatory practices or policies in violation of federal law. This notice of proposed rulemaking proposes to define key terms, and to ensure that recipients of Department funds know about their legal obligations under these nondiscrimination provisions, the Department proposes to require written certification by recipients that they will comply with all three statutes. [emphasis added]

What “key terms” are being defined?

Abortion
Health Care Entity / Entity
Health Service / Health Service Program
Individual
Instrument
Recipients
Sub-recipients
Workforce

All but the first are non-controversial constructs that lay out the ruling’s whos and whats.

But look how HHS-45-CFR defines “abortion”:

[T]he Department proposes to define abortion as “any of the various procedures—including the prescription 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.

Previously, implantation was the starting point.  But under this definition, recipients of Federal funds, as noted early by blogger Cristina Page on RH Reality Check, would be empowered to obstruct a woman’s access to birth control drugs that do their work after an ovum is fertilized (conception).  The definition clearly includes IUDs and Plan B’s morning-after pill, and since it is unlikely that a woman would know the precise moment that fertilization took place,  perhaps other birth control modalities.

But after nearly a month of no comment, Secy. Leavitt explained it was all a misunderstanding:

An early draft of the regulations found its way into public circulation before it had reached my review. It contained words that lead some to conclude my intent is to deal with the subject of contraceptives, somehow defining them as abortion. Not true.

Not true?

HHS-45-CFR (the full text in pdf form is here) is Secy. Leavitt’s poker hand…on the table…face-up. The cards (and the words) speak for themselves.

Obama has come out against this ruling; McCain has yet to make a statement.