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Felicia Muftic: Health reform legislation, a federal overreach

Felicia Muftic My View
Grand County, CO Colorado

Listen up my daughters and granddaughters. The ultra religious right wants to dictate how you live your lives, not just by delivering edicts from the pulpit, but from the legislature and the political podium. They want laws to carry out their religious mission whether you share their particular interpretation of the Bible or not.  The result, the freedom to  make choices about your lives and health care, the relationship with your doctor, the ability even to have the wherewithal  and freedom to make those choices, is in jeopardy. 

You have enjoyed freedom to make choices in your life time. You have taken it for granted that freedom is there for you. You have lived in the era of Roe v Wade, Griswold v Connecticut, and a majority of those governing guarding your rights. However, there are those who are determined to roll your lives back to the times of under which those who went before you lived.

No one is telling you to get an abortion or take the pill. You may never ever want to do any  of this.  Some  just want to deny your opportunity and ability to make your own decisions about your health  in consultation with your priest, rabbi or minister and/or your doctor. Some want to make it even criminal for doctors to help you make some of these decisions.



Be aware that personhood amendments that define life as beginning at conception put into the laws you must obey could make it illegal for you to get the pill, much less to take any other measures to plan your family.

I have seen you, my daughters, delay mammograms and checkups until you could afford the copays or get a job that provided health insurance. Be aware that health care reform we call Obamacare outlaws treating pregnancy as a pre -existing condition, preventing it to be used as grounds for denying insurance. Obamacare provides that mammograms, colonoscopies, checkups, and contraceptives will be provided to all without co-pays.



Your father/grandfather, an obstetrician-gynecologist,is a doctor whose ethical beliefs have been in synch with Catholic hospital policies in which he has been in attendance. He is furious with these attempts to interfere with his relationships with his patients by restricting his ability to advise what he believes is best to make sure the mothers and the babies he delivers are healthy in mind, body and spirit. The last straw this past month came when it became obvious that there were those who wanted to keep you from getting or affording contraceptives. A purpose of such medication is to help you avoid undertaking even more emotionally and physically painful procedures in the future, including treatment for endometriosis.

Do not fall for the line that health reform legislation is just a big federal government overreach. The most radical overreaches are those laws that restrict your personal choices and are being enacted at the state level, while the Republican dominated House of Representatives echoes some of the same legislative initiatives. Remember, who will be elected President could appoint justices that overturn Roe v Wade. Feed this in your voting decisions , or else in 2013 you may be in for a rude shock.

For more, go to http://www.mufticforum.com


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