Don't look now, but your hubris is showing...

The opening salvo for the fate of Women's Rights was launched yesterday when Congress added a clause into a much-needed spending bill that would permit health car providers from denying services to patients, particularly those who are anti-Choice.

House and Senate negotiators have tucked a potentially far-reaching anti-abortion provision into a $388 billion must-pass spending bill, complicating plans for Congress to wrap up its business and adjourn for the year.

The provision may be an early indication of the growing political muscle of social conservatives who provided crucial support for Republican candidates, including President Bush, in the election.

House officials said Saturday morning that the final details of the spending measure were worked out before midnight and that the bill was filed for the House vote on Saturday.

The abortion language would bar federal, state and local agencies from withholding taxpayer money from health care providers that refuse to provide or pay for abortions or refuse to offer abortion counseling or referrals. Current federal law, aimed at protecting Roman Catholic doctors, provides such "conscience protection'' to doctors who do not want to undergo abortion training. The new language would expand that protection to all health care providers, including hospitals, doctors, clinics and insurers.

This can have extremely far-reaching implications. Doctors take an oath to provide health care to their patients, not to pick and choose when and where or to whom those services are provided.

Contact your Congresspeople and media outlets and tell them that American's are in favor of a women's right to choose. They no that already. It's wy they introduce the bill on Friday and then vote on it on Saturday. No debate this, especially in the national media. We can't lose any ground, no matter how small it may seem, without putting up a hell of a fight.

The up-side of getting down to this business so soon after their rise to power is we will be able to see who the "moderate" republicans are exactly and how effective they are in blocking the extremism of the majority of their party.