A Bush administration proposal leaked recently has heightened the controversial and often bitter debate over the balance between religious freedom and patients’ reproductive rights.

The New York Times recently reported on a Department of Health and Human Services review of a draft regulation that would deny federal funding to any hospital, doctor, clinic, health plan, etc. … that discriminates against employees who object to abortion and the use of birth-control devices (including Plan B, the "morning-after pill") they consider the same as abortion.

But now, The Washington Post reports that while conservative groups, abortion opponents and some in Congress hail the regulation necessary to safeguard doctors, nurses and others whose beliefs, they say, are compromised if they’re forced into delivering such services, it’s also receiving fierce criticism by family-planning advocates, women’s health activists and other lawmakers who say it simply creates more obstacles for women seeking abortions and birth control.

They also worry that it could have unintended consequences – such as affecting research and care, since the regulation for the first time defines abortion as anything that affects a fertilized egg.

"The breadth of this is potentially immense," Robyn S. Shapiro, a bioethicist and lawyer at the Medical College of Wisconsin, told The Washington Post. "Is this going to result in a kind of blessed censorship of a whole host of areas of medical care and research?"

Critics charge that the proposal is the latest example of the administration politicizing science to advance ideological goals.

Susan F. Wood, a professor at George Washington University who resigned from the Food and Drug Administration because of her frustration in delays in approving the nonprescription sale of Plan B, said: "They are manipulating the system by manipulating the definition of the word ‘abortion.’"

One National Institutes of Health researcher said there is "a lot of distress" within that agency over the proposal, since it’s a "redefinition of abortion that does not match any of the current medical definitions."

"It’s ideologically based and not based on science and could interfere with the development of many new therapies to treat diseases," the researcher said.

If a new regulation on abortion is too broad, others worry it could affect other research areas, such as stem cells, infertility and cancer.

Many members of Congress and various groups have sent letters to HHS in protest. But conservative groups counter the arguments against the regulation.

"Health-care professionals should not be forced to engage in an action that they see is the taking of a human life. Federal funds shouldn’t be used for that kind of pressure," said David Christensen of the Family Research Council.