ALERT: Health & Human Services Wants to Rescind Doctors' & Nurses' Rights!
ALERT: The Obama Administration via the Department of Health and Human Services is moving quickly to overturn important federal regulations that protect health care professionals who act according to their deeply held personal convictions. The 2008 regulation implements and enforces three federal laws protecting the conscience rights of health care providers, especially those at risk of being discriminated against because of their moral or religious objection to abortion.Thus the current regulations make sure doctors, nurses, and pharmacists can uphold their personal beliefs while practicing medicine—without facing discrimination or retribution in the workplace. This problem is a serious one, as real health care providers have been fired and denied opportunities because of their desire to not participate in procedures, such as abortions, that violate their consciences. No matter how you feel about specific medical procedures, we can all agree that the freedom to work in accord with one's conscience must be protected.
As they did when the conscience regulation was first proposed, pro-abortion groups are again trying to flood HHS with comments attacking conscience rights. Their chief message: Rescind the regulation because conscience clauses (which they call “refusal” or “denial” clauses) interfere with women’s “access” to health care. These groups want to force doctors, nurses and hospitals to violate their consciences or leave the profession.
Although the rescission proposal was published in the Federal Register on March 10, most of the general public outside of the health care profession did not notice this was being proposed. The public only has until close of business on April 9 (two more days) to submit comments!
URGENT: Send your comment to HHS in one of the following ways & Share this with your friends and family:
- Online through A Doctor's Right.
- Online through Regulations.gov (check “Select to find documents” and then enter “Rescission Proposal”).
- E-mail to proposedrescission@hhs.gov (not necessarily the best option)
Suggested Message: “Please retain the conscience regulation, and enforce the laws protecting the right of health care providers to serve patients without violating their moral and religious convictions. The government has a special responsibility to ensure that the conscience rights of health care providers are fully protected.”
Some other general points to consider besides the facts above:
- Religious liberty and freedom of conscience have been building blocks of our society since its founding. We respect conscientious objection for those opposed to war, physicians opposed to taking part in capital punishment, and others who object to involvement in the taking of life. We can do no less in the context of abortion.
- Conscience protection does not threaten access to health care. Allowing health care providers to serve the public without violating their consciences protects and enhances access to health care, by ensuring continued participation by some of our most dedicated health professionals. Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran and other faith-based providers are specially called to serve the poorest and most vulnerable, from the inner city to remote rural areas – if they are driven away, who will replace them?
- Abortion, in particular, cannot be seen as “standard” health care. Most physicians, nurses and hospitals choose not to provide abortion, and the Hippocratic Oath that established medicine as a profession has rejected abortion for many centuries. Forcing health professionals to be involved in abortion against their will shows a distorted sense of priorities—one that will irreparably damage the healing professions and undermine efforts to work together for health care reform. See Also:
- Protection of Health Care Providers’ Right of Conscience: What Federal Law Says
- Obama Administration: Rolling Back Conscience Protections for Doctors, Nurses
- Removing Conscience Rights: A Dangerous Prescription in Health Care
Tags: conscience protections, doctors, health care workers, HHS, hospitals, moral conscience To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Posted by Bill Smith at 3:00 PM - Post Link
5 Comments:
The implications of the Conscience Clause exclusion are not about the Right to Life or a Women's privacy at all. This is about not just the government's Right to Kill- it goes further by insisting that all U.S. health care workers are required to commit what they consider murder - or leave their profession altogether.
http://faultlineusa.blogspot.com/2009/04/attention-health-care-practitioners.html
I heard this was coming and read your articles with interest. When I was nursing we were allowed to op out of practices that were contrary to our beliefs. Although we were not allowed to refuse to treat people with AIDS and were not allowed to be informed of a patient with AIDS. Other communicable dieases were put on the charts and precautions were advised. Funny huh? I guess it was already starting. I'm "afeared" that God is starting to get cross with us.
Thanks for posting this. Protecting "a woman's right to choose" is now taking away more than the babies right to life. It is taking away the doctors right to choose, and it is taking away the rights of every person who would seek health care from faith based hospitals who provide a certain standard of care in accordance with their beliefs. Faith based hospitals and faith based clinics are necessary for providing health care to those in need.
You can take action on this in less than 30 seconds if you:
1. Go to nchla.org/docdisplay.asp?ID=233
2. Click on take action.
3. Click on Send email (top right hand corner of page).
Of course, health is most important in your life.
One thing I always found interesting is how people always bash our health care system because it doesn't rank as high as they think it should when World Health Organization ranks them. One of the criteria they use is if it is socialized or not. So we automatically drop down because we are a private(kind of) system. It's no wonder that socialized systems rank better than ours if the fact that it's socialized makes them rank higher just by itself.
The important thing is to learn more from
a great of articles online for free educational Health Information.
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