In comments opposing the proposed regulations, the Center for Reproductive Rights charges that the plan is nothing less than an underhanded way for the Bush administration to chip away at women’s right to choose as guaranteed by Roe v. Wade.

"By describing prenatal care as health care for the fetus, the Bush administration leaves the woman out of the equation altogether," said Priscilla Smith, acting director of the Center for Reproductive Rights' domestic program. "The administration has spent more time looking for ways to serve their anti-choice agenda than taking serious action to improve the health of women and babies."

Administration officials have touted the regulations as the quickest means to provide low-income pregnant women with access to prenatal care, yet there are other more effective and far less inflammatory ways to do so. For example, the administration could support bipartisan legislation currently before Congress that would extend SCHIP coverage to pregnant women. Second, states can already request coverage for pregnant women by applying to the federal government for a waiver without the need to designate the fetus as an "unborn child". The Bush administration controls the waiver process and, up until now, has dragged its feet in expediting states’ requests to expand SCHIP coverage.

"If the administration was really serious about improving women’s health and birth outcomes, and reducing documented disparities in health care based on race and ethnicity as they claim, they would adopt one of these superior proposals to increase health insurance coverage for prenatal care," said Smith.

The Center for Reproductive Rights' proposal for improving women’s health calls for increasing coverage of reproductive healthcare to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity and infant mortality, while at the same time respecting a woman’s right to choose when and how many children she wants to conceive.