On his way out the door, President Bush wants to accomplish through an administrative rule what he couldn't get by trying to stack the Supreme Court with ideological allies. He's changing the rules so anyone employed anywhere that gets federal funding could refuse to conduct a health-related service, sale, referral or research that he or she considers in conflict with personal moral or religious beliefs. Read abortion or birth control.

Staggering in its scope, the "Provider Conscience Regulation," could be implemented by the Health and Human Services Department within a week. It covers 584,294 entities at an annual cost of by the $44.5 million for enforcement. It would apply to all health-care providers, pharmacies, state or local governments, educational entities, nonprofits, hospitals, clinics, doctors' offices and others that get federal money.

Doctors could refuse to inform rape victims about the morning-after pill, to counsel unmarried people about sexually transmitted diseases or birth control or to screen or vaccinate young women for the sexually transmitted HPV virus. Health-care providers and pharmacists could refuse to dispense contraceptives, Viagra, morphine or anything else.

The Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, which is responsible for preventing employment discrimination, wasn't even consulted on it. Three top EEOC officials have said the Civil Rights Act already prevents religious-based employment discrimination.

But the White House Office of Management and Budget, headed by Iowa's Jim Nussle - who, as a candidate for governor, said he would sign a bill to outlaw all abortion except to save a mother's life - got and approved the rule the same day.

It's opposed by members of Congress, 13 states and associations of drug stores, hospitals and doctors. Pharmacies and clinics could be forced to hire people who refuse to do the work for which they were hired, and then be unable to fire them.

State officials have said the rule could interfere with state laws that require insurance plans to cover contraceptives and require hospitals to offer emergency contraception to rape victims.

Imagine this scenario that Jim Flansburg, spokesman for Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa, actually experienced.

Flansburg was living in Denton, Texas, in 2003, when a friend of his, a divorced, 35-year-old mother of two, was raped and feared getting pregnant from the assault. Flansburg (son of the former Register columnist by the same name) accompanied her to the hospital, where she was prescribed the morning-after pill.

But when they went to a pharmacy to get it filled, the pharmacist kept them waiting as other customers came and went. When Flansburg finally went to check, the pharmacist said he couldn't dispense the medication because "I think it's an abortion, and I cannot give it to your friend in good faith."

Flansburg took his sobbing friend to another pharmacy, which, they were told, was out of the pill (he doubts that). They finally got it on the third try. Flansburg says his friend was "victimized all over again because of someone else's religious beliefs."

Now Bush plans to subject the whole country to such treatment. This has all the markings of a politically motivated effort rather than one based on preventing discrimination, which is how it's presented. Is it discrimination to fire someone for not doing the job he or she was hired to do?

President-elect Barack Obama opposes the rule, and aides have said he'd try to rescind it, but that could take three to six months.

Meanwhile on Wednesday, Democratic Sens. Hillary Clinton and Patty Murray introduced legislation to prevent the rule from going into effect.

Knowing it'll be overturned, it's an empty show for Bush to force this through.

His leadership repudiated, his White House days waning, he should exit gracefully and shelve this unwarranted intrusion into the lives and choices of private citizens.