From a feminist standpoint, I’m thrilled that a candidate who is the mother of a very young child has been nominated. One of the standard tropes of social conservatism is that mothers of young children should not work outside the home. If Sarah Palin is the vice-president, one heartbeat (a septuagenarian heartbeat at that) from the presidency and also the mother of a special-needs toddler, that sends a powerful message about the compatibility of motherhood with career. However right-wing Palin’s politics are, the narrative of her life today reflects a deep feminism. She embodies, literally, the notion that women ought not be forced to choose between family and public duty. That’s a deeply progressive message, even if it’s sent by an ostensibly conservative woman.

The regulation is written to apply to a broad swath of the health care work force, not doctors alone. Accordingly, an employee whose task it is to clean the instruments used in a particular procedure would be covered. Also covered would be volunteers and trainees.

The underlying laws deal mainly with abortion and sterilization, but both the laws and the language of the rule seem to recognize that objections on conscience grounds could involve other types of services.

"This regulation does not limit patient access to health care, but rather protects any individual health care provider or institution from being compelled to participate in, or from being punished for refusal to participate in, a service that, for example, violates their conscience," the rule said.

Leavitt said the regulation was intended to protect practitioners who have moral objections to abortion and sterilization, and would not interfere with patients’ ability to get birth control or any legal medical procedure.

“Nothing in the new regulation in any way changes a patient’s right to any legal procedure,” he said, noting that a patient could go to another provider.