Pro-choice organizations and women's groups have rightly been vocal about a recent proposal by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to expand protections for medical professionals who refuse to provide health care services that they object to on moral grounds.

Among the flurry of comments sent to HHS before the shortened public response period closed, was one that could be a serious blow to the regulation.  This letter focused not only on women's' rights, but also on the Department's use of bad economics.

The Institute for Policy Integrity (IPI), a think-tank at New York University Law School, did an analysis of the rule.  It found that HHS could be in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act because it relied on a poor cost-benefit analysis.  Under these rules, regulators need to take into consideration all anticipated positive and negative consequences of a rule before finalizing it.

The Bush Administration claims that the benefits outweigh the costs of this regulation.  But they reached this conclusion without actually using any data or proof.  The HHS analysis overlooked crucial consequences.

First, HHS says the only positive consequence is an increase in diversity of viewpoints among the healthcare workforce.  While diversity is a positive, to include this type of diversity as an economic benefit without any sort of evidence that this would actually result is irresponsible.

Second, HHS found that the only cost of the rule was . . . paperwork.  This is not only absurd, but also profoundly inaccurate.  Bush Administration officials have completely disregarded all of the effects this rule would have on women's health.

What about decreased access to contraception, decreased availability of medical information, decreased supply of counseling services, decreased availability of general medical services, and possible refusals to treat whole groups of individuals (such as the LGBT community or HIV/AIDS patients)?  Apparently, the folks at HHS either believe these things have no value or they didn't even anticipate the possibility of them occurring.

The Center for Reproductive Rights, National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, and National Asian Pacific Women's Forum, along with 50 other reproductive health, legal, and human rights organizations, submitted comments that included this analysis from IPI.  The coalition is trying to make the Bush Administration take into consideration the concerns of pro-choice and women's groups as a matter of economics and law.

Let's hope they listen.