The Automatik

I was just tipped off by a friend on the Internet to this article from Cristina Page on an alleged proposal by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to define contraception as abortion.

(Note: For some background on why contraception might be considered abortion, please see my May 7 piece called “Women Are Soldiers In The Misogyny Army.” )

I worked with HHS for eight years and spent a lot of time reading and interpreting regulations, so I wanted to see the source data for this article. It was not linked in Ms. Page’s post, so I did some digging.

A Google search for “HHS Contraception Abortion” yielded several pages of results, most of which were boilerplated from Ms. Page’s article.

However, this one, from Reproductive Health Reality Check, provides a link to a PDF of the leaked HHS document. Here is the linked PDF.

Please note that this document doesn’t have a title or a designated section in the CFR (Code of Federal Regulations). It also bears the text “Draft” and “This is a confidential, deliberative, pre-decisional document and does not necessarily affect current policy efforts or plans. For official use only.”

So what is the Code of Federal Regulations anyway?

From the United States Laws and Legislation Guide:

What’s the difference between the U.S. Code and the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR)?

As you’ve discovered, a few words are used in several different publications. However, with respect to legal issues, “code” refers to a set of currently valid law or regulations arranged by subject. The U.S. Code contains laws – what you’re supposed to do – and the CFR contains regulations – how you’re supposed to do it.

Every regulation in the CFR has to have an “enabling statute” or “statutory authority”. Despite the way it might seem sometimes, agencies cannot just create regulations because they feel like it – there must be a law in force that requires the regulation. That law is the enabling statute. Only after an enabling statute has been created can a regulation be developed.

Therefore, the U.S. Code and the CFR represent different kinds of law and different stages in the legislative process, with the U.S. Code preceeding the CFR.

Please note that because this proposal document does not have any USC or CFR sections listed in it, it means it is in its infancy (pardon the pun) and may not even ever come to light.

According to this article in the New York Times, this proposal circulated in HHS on Monday July 15.

Christina Pearson, a spokeswoman for the department, declined to discuss the draft. “We don’t normally comment on whether we are considering changes in regulations,” she said.

Despite the fact that this is NOT official legislation at this time, I feel that it is very important to keep an eye on this. Unfortunately, without a designated section in the USC or CFR, there isn’t a way to find it.

However, if you ever want to look things up on the CFR, you can go here: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/CFR/INDEX.HTML

Title 45 CFR, Public Welfare can be found here:

http://www.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/cfrassemble.cgi?title=200745 It covers the Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS) General Administration, as you can see.

The “Church Amendments” referred to in the PDF of the proposal are at 42 USC (United States Code) 300a – 7. The USC page is here:

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/uscode/

I found this Cornell Law Site by Googling “42 USC 300a.”

Here you can see that it’s actually Title 42, Chapter 6A, Subchapter VII, which can be found on the USC page here:

http://www.access.gpo.gov/uscode/title42/chapter6a_subchapterviii_.html

Hopefully this will be helpful in looking up this data when monitoring this proposed document.

In the meantime, please contact your insurance providers and health care providers to let them know how you feel about this.

Planned Parenthood is also on the case. If you go to their site, you can see more about this proposal and how to express your feelings on it.