He also said, "I'd like to stress one thing: Nothing in the new regulation in any way changes a patient's right to any legal procedure."
But Golombek said Wednesday that the draft regulation "would allow providers to withhold critical health care information without telling their patients."
As a result, those angry about the proposal also say it muddies the line between abortion and contraception, and they read it as an opening for health care providers to more often refuse to prescribe birth control and other forms of contraception and limit women's health care options.
"I was completely shocked that now, three years after it had happened to me, we're coming back to this," said Megan Kelly Wednesday. Kelly is an Illinois mother who has spoken out against her pharmacy's resistance to filling her birth control.
After she was told she could not receive her monthly prescription or an emergency prescription, Kelly recalled Wednesday that "I would never even have thought that this was an option."
"The pharmacist clearly said to me that she would not fill either of my prescriptions because of her personal belief," she said.
Many states have passed their own laws outlining circumstances in which doctors and pharmacies must fill prescriptions for birth control. The debate about whether federal law can trump state law, in this case regarding women's health, is playing out in courtrooms all the way up to the Supreme Court. The fear among groups such as Planned Parenthood and the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association is that the document suggests an effort to change the nation's law is well under way.
But Leavitt said Thursday that "this regulation is not about contraception. It's about abortion and conscience." He also said that unlike the earlier draft, the proposal does not include a definition of abortion.
Planned Parenthood Action Fund and MoveOn.org delivered boxes filled with the signed petitions to HHS Wednesday afternoon.
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