Oral surgeons, and outpatient surgical facilities are not forced to maintain the same physical requirements as hospitals.  As a former employee of the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Health Care Facilities, I believe this is an unnecessary distraction and simply one more roadblock in the path of women seeking termination of a pregnancy.  Members of my family over the past 25 years have undergone a number of outpatient surgeries (cancer, wisdom teeth, breast augmentation, "tummy tuck", termination of pregnancy) in facilities in other cities and states, in facilities that do not meet hospital standards. 

 

Further, I disagree with the characterization of ensuring a woman's right to complete health insurance coverage including contraception, as an assault on the Constitution. That is a ridiculous & inflammatory statement. For any employer to become "offended" at a medically safe & approved method of family planning by claiming that it violates the First Amendment is offensive. Women, in this case, need to be protected from the intrusive meddling into women's medical procedures, by overbearing, sexist religious zealots, whether they be Catholic bishops or Christian politicians.

 

If preventing pregnancy is the issue, then perhaps men should expect their wives to request that they start sleeping on the couch. If fairness in what insurance should cover means that women cannot expect birth control pills to be paid for, then men should not expect coverage for erectile dysfunction medication. If women must be forced to undergo forced ultrasound prior to terminating a pregnancy, then certainly a man should have to undergo expensive, unnecessary & humiliating procedures such as a rectal exam &  perhaps photographs of the procedure in a hospital setting & then undergo counselling &  a waiting period before given Viagra. Republican politicians ran for office claiming they were going to focus on JOBS & less government intrusion in the private lives of citizens, yet all I have been seeing is an attempt to micro-manage something like this. This is NOT an assault on the Constitution, it IS an assault on women. We want freedom FROM religion.

 

Republican lawmakers seem fixated on the Middle Ages, when women had no rights & the church ran the show. Women are not possessions, nor are we stupid. Most of us want the freedom to choose whether or not we want contraception, & we expect, that along with any other prescription our doctors give us, they will be covered under the prescription drug coverage provision of our health insurance regardless of who our employers are or what THEIR religious beliefs are. Please stand up for women & quit pandering to the extremely vocal lunatics.
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