The Age of Obama: Where “Freedom of Choice” means “Draconian Suppression of Conscience”

A reader writes:

MOST DOCTORS AND NURSES WOULD NEVER KILL A PATIENT.

MANY MEDICAL AND PHARMACY STUDENTS DON’T WANT TO BE REQUIRED TO KILL, TO LEARN TO KILL, OR TO COOPERATE WITH KILLING.

SHOULD THEY HAVE A RIGHT TO PRACTICE THE HEALING ARTS IN ACCORDANCE WITH THEIR CONSCIENCES?

YOU DECIDE.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is accepting comments until April 9 on its move to rescind a Bush administration regulation giving federal protection to the conscience rights of health-care providers.

The “conscience” regulation codified several longstanding federal statutes prohibiting discrimination against health professionals who decline to participate in objectionable medical procedures (such procedures might include abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, and suicide) because of their religious or other moral objections.

After the Obama administration announced this RESCISSION OF CONSCIENCE RIGHTS IN HEALTHCARE, a 30-day comment period (starting March 9) was opened for the response of the public, including those who favor respect for non-violence in medicine, the sanctity of human life, freedom of conscience and the ethical integrity of our healing professions.

Weakening or wiping out these conscience protections would

• increase pressure on medical and healthcare workers to cooperate with procedures against their ethical and professional judgment or face dire consequences.
• undermine our national heritage of diversity and religious freedom
• force many to opt out of specialties (such as obstetrics, gynecology, and gerontology — care of the human person at the beginning and end of life) where the pressure to cooperate with killing would be particularly acute
• ultimately reduce ALL patients’ access to life-affirming health care.

Comments may be submitted on the Web site www.Regulations.gov (by entering 0991-AB49 in the search box) or via e-mail to [email protected]. Attachments may be in Microsoft Word, WordPerfect or Excel (Microsoft Word is preferred.)

By mail, one original and two copies of written comments may be sent to: Office of Public Health and Science, Department of Health and Human Services, Attention: Rescission Proposal Comments, Hubert H. Humphrey Building, 200 Independence Ave. SW, Room 716G, Washington, DC 20201.

To act now, send a statement to:
[email protected]
Sample letter:
Office of Public Health and Science (etc., as above)
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to comment on the rescission of the conscience rule for health providers.

The conscience rule should not have been rescinded. It protected the right of healthcare providers to practice the healing arts in conformity to ethical codes, religious and non-religious, going back almost 3,000 years, of which the Hippocratic Oath is an outstanding example.

Healthcare providers should not be subjected to any form of discrimination because of their religious and moral convictions. Discrimination against conscientious healthcare providers may take many forms, including the explicit or implied message, “Do this or:
· you’ll lose your license
· you will not advance in your chosen specialty
· you’ll lose funding
· your contract will not be renewed
· you won’t be published
· you’ll lose your certification
· you won’t get tenure
· you’ll be passed over for promotion
· you’re fired.

Thus, those who may wish to coerce health providers have many ways to ramp up the pressure, and medical students are well aware of this. If there is inadequate protection for conscience, a significant number of students will drop out of medicine, or opt out of preferred specialties (e.g. obstetrics/gynecology) rather than face invidious discrimination.

With the escalating costs of medical-malpractice insurance, obstetrics has already became such a financial drain that more and more ob-gyns and hospitals are bailing out of the pregnancy and birthing aspects of their medical practice. A survey by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) found that almost half the country — 22 states including Illinois, Maryland, Missouri, Washington, and New Jersey — is now in “Red Alert” crisis mode, meaning that the number of ob-gyns is not sufficient to meet patients’ needs.

Mounting pressure on America’s dwindling number of ob-gyn’s to cooperate in practices like abortion which are morally abhorrent to them, will only make this crisis worse. Some gynecologists and obstetricians will quit. Some will take early retirements. Some will transition into other specialties. And the shrinkage in the number of providers in this crucial area of healthcare will contribute to mounting hardships for poor women, especially in underserved parts of the country.

Conscientious healthcare workers are a national treasure. Please demonstrate your support for them by strengthening their right to practice the healing arts according to their best moral and professional judgment.

Update: Another readers adds:

I think your reader overstates his case on the rescindment of the HHS regs.

The HHS rules implement existing federal law, which was being ignored in some cases. The federal laws will still exist.

According to Fr. Thomas Berg, some relevant conscience protection laws are The Church Amendments (42 U.S.C. § 300a-7), Public Health Service (PHS) Act §245 (42 U.S.C. § 238n), and the Weldon Amendment (Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008, Pub. L. No. 110-161, § 508(d), 121 Stat. 1844, 2209).

The reader is right to say pressure may be more difficult to resist without the regs, but let’s be very clear about what is and is not going on.