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USA Today opinion piece says Obama shows ‘real respect’ by upholding “Conscience Rule” for health care workers.
April 30, 2009 – B
This editorial first appeared in “USA TODAY”.
Medical workers deserve robust 'conscience clause'By James O'Neill principal associate deputy secretary of Health and Human Services in 2007-2008. Imagine you're a doctor in Sudan. You believe in healing people and are committed to your profession. Then one day, a woman brings her daughter to your office and asks you to perform a female genital cutting. You'll react in horror and flatly refuse to mutilate her genitals or refer her to a doctor who will, no matter how popular or legal the procedure might be in your community. And if your hospital threatens to fire you over your refusal, you'll be outraged at the hospital, too. You might urge your neighbors to respect your rights, though they don't share your revulsion: "If you don't like it, quit being a doctor," some might say. It's easy to say you respect a view you reject. It's hard to respect such views in practice. Yet real respect is what some nurses and doctors want President Obama to show, by upholding the regulation that protects their consciences. Over three decades, Congress has passed laws (often collectively called the "conscience clause") that prohibit hospitals and other institutions that accept federal funds from forcing employees to act against their moral or religious convictions — such as providing sterilization or Plan B, or coercing them to perform or refer for abortions. Right to object As a Department of Health and Human Services official, I discovered that many doctors didn't even know that they had the right to conscience protection. How could they be expected to defend such a right? In fact, a quasi-governmental certification organization, the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology, warned OB/GYNs in 2007 that "disqualification or diplomate revocation … may occur whenever" their practices conflict with the ethical code of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which proposed to add a requirement that "health care professionals have the duty to refer patients" to abortion providers, regardless of conscience objections. Many U.S. health professionals have been asked to suppress their moral objections, including a medical school applicant interrogated about abortion views, a medical student who was sent without warning to assist in a second-trimester abortion, and a nurse at a podiatry surgery center whose boss announced one day that the center would start performing abortions, and that nurses would assist or be fired. Setting guidelines While at HHS, I led a team that designed a regulation to enforce the laws for the first time. We based it on the common-sense principle that patients and doctors have the right to agree on treatments and compensation. Neither should force the other to do something. As fellow human beings, their rights are equal. Critics suggest the goal of the regulation was to deny women access to abortions. But doctors and nurses at abortion clinics choose to work there. Unfortunately, the Obama administration recently announced plans "to rescind (the regulation) in its entirety." Simply put, doing so would foster discrimination. But the president still has time to leave the regulation intact. America could use more doctors and nurses, especially OB/GYNs, so that patients can have greater access. But when 52% of doctors object to abortion for failed contraception, as The New England Journal of Medicine reported in 2007, a signal from the president that they and medical students like them are not wanted would send the wrong signal. This is not a liberal or conservative issue but individual conscience. As the president has said, "I believe in vigorous enforcement of our non-discrimination laws." Now he has a chance to back up those words with action — or in this case, inaction.
End editorial
PROPOSED CHANGES BY OBAMA ADMINISTRATION SUMMARY: The Department of Health and Human Services proposes to rescind the December 19, 2008 final rule entitled ‘‘Ensuring That Department of Health and Human Services Funds Do Not Support Coercive or Discriminatory Policies or Practices in Violation of Federal Law.’’ The Department believes it is important to have an opportunity to review this regulation to ensure its consistency with current Administration policy and to reevaluate the necessity for regulations implementing the Church Amendments, Section 245 of the Public Health Service Act, and the Weldon Amendment
. EXAMPLE LEGISLATION OF CONCIENCE CLAUSE WHICH WOULD BE BANNED UNDER FREEDOM OF CHOICE ACT
Illinois [Illinois Legislature] 745 ILCS 30/0.01 Sec. 0.01. Short title. This Act may be cited as the Abortion Performance Refusal Act. (Source: P.A. 86-1324.) (745 ILCS 30/1) Sec. 1.
(a) No physician, nurse or other person who refuses to recommend,
perform or assist in the performance of an abortion, whether such
abortion be a crime or not, shall be liable to any person for damages
allegedly arising from such refusal.
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