HHS chief denies new rule to attack contraception

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A widely circulated draft U.S. regulation that would define many forms of contraception as abortion will not be proposed in that form, if at all, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said on Thursday. He said the draft, which was denounced by family planning groups, was circulated before he had seen it and would be rewritten. "The Department is still contemplating if it will issue a regulation or not. If it does, it will be directly focused on the protection of practitioner conscience," Leavitt wrote in his blog, posted at secretarysblog.hhs.gov/ . The proposed regulation as written would have cut off federal funds to hospitals and states that attempt to compel medical providers to offer legal abortion and contraception services to women. The part... [read full story]