‘Conscience’ Regulation For Health-Care Workers To End
This is one of those issues that truly irritates me. Not only was I upset by the ones in the health-care industry who wish to make a scene over their higher ‘moral’ responsibilities, but I was also angry that the Bush White House paid attention to them for political purposes.
People who enter the health care profession either want to work in the field and address the needs of the people, regardless of their moral differences, or perhaps these workers need to find another way to pay for their way through life. It disturbs me to hear that some health care workers think they can pick and choose which patients deserve attention, and others that do not. Under the Bush Administration the element within the health care industry that did not understand the full extent of their job had a sympathetic ear. Thankfully, that has changed.
The Obama administration has begun the process of rescinding sweeping new federal protections that were granted in December to health-care workers who refuse to provide care that violates their personal, moral or religious beliefs.
The Office of Management and Budget announced this morning that it was reviewing a proposal to lift the controversial “conscience” regulation, the first step toward reversing the policy. Once the OMB has reviewed the proposal it will be published in Federal Register for a 30-day public comment period.
“We are proposing rescinding the Bush rule,” said an official with the Health and Human Services Department, which drafted the rule change.
The administration took the step because the regulation was so broadly written that it could provide protections to health-care workers who object not only to abortion but also to a wide range of health-care services, said the HHS official, who asked not to be named because the process had just begun.
“We’ve been concerned that the way the Bush rule is written it could make it harder for women to get the care they need. It is worded so vaguely that some have argued it could limit family planning counseling and even potentially blood transfusions and end-of-life care,” the official said.
Health care workers can still refuse to participate in an abortion. Their employers will be able to fire them for their refusal, but given the shortage of doctors and nurses, it is unlikely that anyone will be fired for opting out of abortion.
Conscience legislation is really about allowing pro-life pharmacists to block access to contraception. There are people who deliberately go to pharmacy school and take jobs in small towns where there are few pharmacies because they believe it is their sacred calling to block access to the birth control pill.
Remember that case in Eau Claire a few years ago? The a**hole pharmacist not only refused to fill the prescription, but he confiscated it so the woman could not get it filled elsewhere. The state licensing board punished him for it. However, if Wisconsin had conscience legislation on the books (as several states do), he would have had some legal protection to keep his job and keep harming women.
Of course, conscience legislation could also allow a devout Jehovah’s Witness go into health care and refuse to participate in blood transfusions. I would be interested to know whether Tom Canton, Mindy and Al think that such folks should have the right to do so.
There is already a shortage of pharmacists, general practice doctors, and nurses. What if all of them who oppose abortion decided to leave the profession? There would be an even bigger shortage, and it would hit the poorest areas the hardest. It would be one thing if there were a bunch of people knocking down the doors to be doctors, nurses, and pharmacists, but there aren’t.
Think of it another way. One of the arguments seems to be that if there is only one pharmacist in a 20-30 square mile area, it’s not OK for her to refuse to dispense contraceptives. Well, fine, but what if that pharmacist is the only person with a pharmacy degree who actually wants to live in that underserved, high-poverty rural area? I think what people who oppose conscience protections don’t understand is that it’s not a choice between a pharmacist who refuses to dispense birth control and one who conforms with the law. The choice is between having that pharmacist (who will still fill prescriptions for other medicine) and no one at all.
I have been a nurse for a long time and take my job very seriously. My patients, all of them deserve my very best. Abortion not only ends the life of a human child but causes lasting mental anguish to the mother. I once heard a woman say “a woman who wants to end her pregnancy is sometimes so desperate that she is like a wild animal caught in a trap, willing to gnaw her own leg off to get out of it”. For 12 years I have cared for, counseled and loved these post-abortive women who, in haste or a time of great stress, terminated their pregnancies.
I will not participate in an abortion procedure but I will recover her, respect her as my patient and treat her with kindess. No matter what the means, she has just lost her child. Now you have the nerve to say that since I will not participate in a procedure that I believe will kill one human being and harm another for the rest of her life I should be punished by the federal government. And the Obama administration can not force me to commit murder or submit a woman to life long psychological torment. I am afraid I won’t be a very good little Nazi.
I guess I still don’t see your point: Soldiers are incarcerated for failure to follow orders and dereliction of duty. They know that going in, too.
Anyway, thanks for trying to explain it to me.
I guess I assumed that by ‘people’ it also included Congress. After all I said “how it was framed and presented to the Congress and public”
When a President uses the office to mislead the Congress and the nation about the need to start a war, distorts the truth about the need to start a war, and as a result has over 4,000 soldiers killed based on fear and fanciful presentations by his adminstration, then that is both an impeachable offense, and against the laws of the nation.
So a soldier has a right, in my mind and in accordance with his/her moral code, to remove himself/herself from a policy that is illegal.
But the Supreme Court ruled abortion legal. Going into the health care industry everyone understands that fact. So to have qualms about abortion (or AIDS services) or anything of a ‘moral’ nature, is not the same as going up against something that is not legal (the war) in this country.
My views are from the same reference point in regards to what is legal, and what is not, and how workers can or should react.
the supreme court legalized abortion. Congress gave the president authority to wage war in Iraq.
I might argue that in Roe V. Wade the supreme court went beyond its authority. In the same sense you claim the Iraq war was misrepresented to the public–even though the public does not grant the authority to wage war. Law is Law.
You do not use the same reference point.
I would argue that abortion is legal given the Supreme Court ruling, and the war in Iraq is not legal given how it was framed and presented to the Congress and public by the Bush Administration, and the way the ‘facts’ were manipulated. Therefore, I think my views on the role of those involved with these two matters (health-care workers or members of the military) are based on the principal of law, and therefore I am operating on the same foundation with each issue. Is it legal? We may disagree on the issues, but I can tell you I am basing my views from the same reference point.
You Write: “People who enter the health care profession either want to work in the field and address the needs of the people, regardless of their moral differences, or perhaps these workers need to find another way to pay for their way through life. It disturbs me to hear that some health care workers think they can pick and choose which patients deserve attention, and others that do not.”
Isn’t it interesting how by changing just a few words here we see such fluctuation in the principles you opperate under–depending on the instance at hand.
Consider: Soldiers who enter the military profession either want to work in the field and address the needs of the people, regardless of their moral differences, or perhaps these workers need to find another way to pay for their way through life. It disturbs me to hear that some military workers think they can pick and choose which missions deserve attention, and others that do not.
Seems like weak reasoning to me. A doctor who refuses to perform an abortion is an outrage for the same reason a soldier who abandons his oath is a hero.
There will still be some room for those who might have issues with abortion, but again I say, perhaps these folks need to find a new job.
Also, pastors do not get federal funds (tax dollars) so your argument is specious. I ask that you supply one serious person who advocates demanding clergy perform gay marriages. Give me a bill number, etc. to support your theory. In addition what bill are your reading about that will allow for gay marriages. If you pass that along I will blog about it. Who authored the bill? State/national? I strongly suspect that this matter will find a remedy in the courts…..and not in the legislative chambers. Just like every other major issue of our nation.
And does it not scare you that Bush used these issues as political angles while he was in office? It had nothing to do with health care for him. The issue on its face clearly proves that to be true. If it was so important to Bush why did he wait until Dec. 19th to issue the rules? Hmmm……politics!
This is very frightening. The all knowing, all seeing Obama GOVERNMENT is going to tell health care workers to perform abortions who have problems with this morally. What next? Compelling Bible believing Pastors, Ministers and Clergy they will have to perform Gay Marriage ceremonies when that law passes — and I believe that will become the law of the land very quickly.
The GOVERNMENT to bail you out and next the GOVERNMENT as your moral conscience and God.
Dude, doesn’t this slightly scare the living “S” out of you????