The Los Angeles Times has a piece up this morning entitled Broader medical refusal rule may go far beyond abortion. The subheader for the piece is The Bush administration plans a new 'right of conscience' rule that would allow more workers to refuse more procedures. Critics say it could apply to artificial insemination and birth control. From the piece:
The outgoing Bush administration is planning to announce a broad new 'right of conscience' rule permitting medical facilities, doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other healthcare workers to refuse to participate in any procedure they find morally objectionable, including abortion and possibly even artificial insemination and birth control.
For more than 30 years, federal law has dictated that doctors and nurses may refuse to perform abortions. The new rule would go further by making clear that healthcare workers also may refuse to provide information or advice to patients who might want an abortion.
It also seeks to cover more employees. For example, in addition to a surgeon and a nurse in an operating room, the rule would extend to "an employee whose task it is to clean the instruments," the draft rule said.
...Health and Human Services Department officials said the rule would apply to "any entity" that receives federal funds. It estimated 584,000 entities could be covered, including 4,800 hospitals, 234,000 doctor's offices and 58,000 pharmacies.
Not mentioned is that transsexuals like me might have difficulties receiving hormone prescriptions, or filling hormone prescriptions because of religious convictions of providers.
The August press release on the new rules is here; the proposed rules are here.
These new rules are strongly supported by the Christian Medical Association (CMA) and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. From the July CMA press release calling for 'right of conscience' regulations:
[Below the fold: CMA and AHA comment on the proposed 'right of conscience' regulations.]
"It's high time that the will of the people, as expressed over the past 35 years through laws passed by Congress, finally be translated into practical healthcare regulations," noted Dr. David Stevens, CEO of the 13,000-member faith-based professional organization of doctors, in a letter today to the Secretary."Americans on all sides of controversial issues such as abortion, reproductive technologies and assisted suicide can appreciate the need to protect everyone's First Amendment rights of free speech and religious exercise. That means that healthcare professionals must be free to follow their individual conscientious convictions on these life-and-death matters.
...Dr. Gene Rudd, Executive Vice President of the CMA, noted..."The regulations reportedly under consideration at Health and Human Services apparently would simply protect the right for all healthcare professionals to make professional judgments based on moral convictions and ethical standards. Protecting this right also protects patients who choose their physicians based on life-affirming values."
It doesn't protect those of us who don't pick our physicians base on these "Christian" values, especially because even if we pick a physician based on our values, it doesn't protect those of us who receive objectionable services from the nurses, medical technicians, and staff of our chosen physician, nor does it protect us from pharmacist technicians, pharmacist staff, and pharmacists themselves.
The American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Hospital Association (AHA) have come out against these regulations. From the AHA letter on the proposed regulation change:
The definitions of "health care service program" and "health care service," to which an individual can find a moral objection, are very broad and potentially impinge on a patient's access to needed health care services. The preamble states that "health care service program" should be understood to include any activity related in any way to providing medicine, health care, or any other service related to health or wellness, and that "health care service" means any service so provided.The preamble also defines, very broadly, the types of individuals that may be involved in an objectionable procedure. The preamble provides an example of a health care worker who autoclaves (sterilizes) surgical instruments used in an objectionable procedure as someone that "assists in the performance" and is thereby protected under the provider conscience clause. The preamble language further defines that any activity with a reasonable connection to the objectionable procedure, such as referrals and training, can also be considered objectionable. This broad definition of "assist in the performance" suggests that any individual invoking the conscience clause protections is under no obligation to refer the patient to other practitioners, pharmacists or hospitals from whom the patient could receive care. The AHA objects to any proposal that releases a practitioner, for any reason, from an obligation to provide or assist patients with a referral or other information that would allow the patient to receive needed health care services.
The definitions for objectionable health care services and individuals that assist in objectionable procedures is so broad that hospitals have no reasonable way of planning to ensure that patients have access to the health care services they need. Hospitals and their emergency departments are complex entities; as the proposed rule is written, it would be extremely difficult for hospitals to anticipate all the scenarios under which a health care worker might invoke the provider conscience clause. As a result it would be impossible for hospitals to make the staffing arrangements needed to ensure access to those services. The AHA is concerned that access to services for patients may be significantly hampered by the current definitions of this rule.
This is quite a Bush Administration present for "Christian" and other social conservatives at the expense of patients -- patients like me.
Ideas for Change in America is a citizen-driven project that aims to identify and create momentum around the best ideas for how the Obama Administration and 111th Congress can turn the broad call for "change" across the country into specific policies.... |
Sounds intriguing! Partners include techPresident, the Sunlight Foundation, Netroots Nation, VotoLatino, GOOD Magazine, Change Congress, Campus Progress, and People for the America Way.
The top three in each of 30ish categories as of December 31 advance to a second round of voting, from January 5-15, which leads to the final ten being selected. The current top three in the Gay Rights* category:
- Pass Marriage Equality Rights for LGBT couples nationwide, submitted by Jen Nadeau
- restore separation of church & state submitted by Sarah Nelson Wright
- Work with Congress to Pass the Matthew Shepard Act, submitted by Mike Jones
Of course these are far from the only important items on the LGBTAIQ agenda; have a look at the other ideas in the category, and if you don't see what you're looking for, submit your own and start promoting it!
There are plenty of other great ideas in other categories as well -- including Get FISA Right, repeal the PATRIOT Act, and restore our civil liberties. Gee, I wonder who submitted that? :-)
There's a lot of action in categories like Criminal Justice (which had four of the top 20 as of this morning) and Government Reform (which features submissions by big names like Craig Newmark of Craigslist and Jay Rosen). On the other hand, some categories are still almost completely open -- the top entry in Race, for example, only has 19 votes.
The organizers encourage people to engage in viral marketing, and there are handy widgets available. It's an interesting opportunity, so please consider getting involved!
jon
* sorry about the name, LBAIQ's. Please don't shoot the messenger -- I just report the facts.
According to our source, the ad will cite an incident where a white powder was sent to a church, and "document" disruptions of services at houses of worship. The Becket Fund is also allegedly contacting like-minded anti-gay organizations to request that they sign on to the ad.
This D.C.-based organization recently published a "study" on the implications of marriage equality and anti-discrimination legislation on religious liberty.
The study found that all 50 states prohibit gender discrimination in some way, and only 37 states have explicit religious exemptions to these provisions, many of them quite narrow. This lack of robust exemptions could become a problem if (as has happened in some instances) religious objections to same-sex marriage are treated as a kind of gender discrimination. In addition, 33 states prohibit at least some discrimination based on marital status, and only 13 of these states provide religious exemptions, some with a wide latitude of exemption, others with only narrow exemptions. Of the 20 states that prohibit sexual orientation-based discrimination, 18 provide exemptions for religious objection.In fact, Becket touts Mitt Romney's infamous "Freedom Requires Religion" diatribe this year. It was actually delivered at a Becket function at the Metropolitan Club in New York. Mitt and his wife Ann were awarded the Becket's Canterbury Medal for "Courage in the Defense of Religious Liberty. He spewed this nonsense:Based on the data, The Becket Fund concludes that if same-sex marriage is recognized by courts or legislatures, people and institutions that have conscientious objections to facilitating same-sex marriage will likely be sued under existing anti-discrimination laws-laws never intended for that purpose.
From the transcript of his speech:"Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone...It is important to recognize that while differences in theology exist between the churches in America, we share a common creed of moral convictions. And where the affairs of our nation are concerned, it's usually a sound rule to focus on the latter - on the great moral principles that urge us all on a common course. Whether it was the cause of abolition, or civil rights, or the right to life itself, no movement of conscience can succeed in America that cannot speak to the convictions of religious people."
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