LIFE DIGEST: Administration protects pro-life medical workers
- Dec 29, 2008
The Bush administration has delivered a victory to pro-life health care providers by issuing a rule affirming the right of doctors and other medical workers to refuse to participate in abortions and other procedures to which they object.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the new regulation Dec. 18. The rule will take effect 30 days after its publication Dec. 19 in the Federal Register, which means it will be in force when President-elect Barack Obama is sworn in Jan. 20.
The regulation makes clear institutions that receive certain HHS funds and employees of such institutions are protected from discrimination. Recipients of such HHS funds must verify their compliance with laws safeguarding the conscience rights of health care providers.
The rule impacts more than 580,000 hospitals, nursing homes, medical schools, doctors’ offices and other recipients. Noncompliance could result in the withholding of federal funds from those entities.
Richard Land, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, applauded issuance of the new regulation.
“Obviously, this is a banner day for freedom of conscience in America,” Land said. “I think it’s very important that we respect freedom of conscience, and these regulations will help protect the consciences of pro-life, health care professionals to keep them from having to face the choice of either leaving the health care profession or compromising their consciences by being forced to perform or assist in procedures that they find morally repugnant.”
Abortion rights advocates lambasted the regulation and called on the incoming Obama administration to overturn it.
HHS said the regulation was needed to provide “awareness of, and compliance with,” federal laws enacted during the last three decades that were intended to protect the conscience rights of doctors and other health care workers. Those laws include prohibitions on discrimination by federal, state and local governments against institutions or individuals, including those who refuse to take part in or train for the performance of abortions, as well as to make referrals for the procedures.
The Christian Medical Association (CMA) reported 41 percent of its members said in a survey they had been “pressured to compromise Biblical or ethical convictions.”
“Medical students have been reporting to us that they are deciding not to pursue careers in obstetrics and gynecology for fear of coercion to do abortions,” CMA Senior Vice President Gene Rudd said in a written statement. “Obstetricians are already being forced out of the profession because of soaring malpractice insurance costs. Forcing yet more obstetricians out of the profession simply for following the Hippocratic Oath and other medical ethical standards would only further harm patient access.”
Court rules pharmacists may challenge Illinois rule
The Illinois Supreme Court has ruled pro-life pharmacists may have their day in court.
The state high court announced Dec. 18 a circuit court must rule on a suit by pharmacists who object to dispensing the “morning-after pill,” according to the Associated Press. Two lower courts had ruled the pharmacists did not have legal standing to bring suit against a 2005 order by Illinois Gov. Rob Blagojevich, a Democrat, that required pharmacies to fill prescriptions for the drug.
“Finally, an Illinois court got it right,” said Mailee Smith, staff counsel for Chicago-based Americans United for Life, in a written release. “If pharmacists and pharmacy owners don’t have standing to challenge a rule that unfairly targets them, who does? People should have legal recourse when the state attempts to circumvent and even eliminate their constitutional rights.”
The “morning-after pill” – referred to as “emergency contraception” by supporters of abortion rights – not only works to restrict ovulation in a woman, but it can act after conception, thereby causing an abortion. This secondary mechanism can block implantation of a tiny embryo in the uterine wall.
Plan B is a “morning-after pill” that was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for sale by prescription in 1999. In 2006, the FDA cleared Plan B for sale without a prescription for women 18 and older.
The drug regimen is basically a heavier dose of birth control pills. Under the regimen, a woman takes two pills within 72 hours of sexual intercourse and another dose 12 hours later.
Paralyzed teacher defends continued life
A paralyzed British teacher has found it necessary to defend her desire to continue living in the face of the growing clamor in support of assisted suicide and euthanasia.
Sue Garner-Jones, 53, who was paralyzed from the chest down in an auto accident 34 yeas ago, spoke out after what she described as the “negative response towards disabled people” in the news media’s coverage of the assisted suicide in September of 23-year-old Daniel James. The former rugby player killed himself with aid from Dignitas, a pro-assisted-suicide group in Switzerland.
“[T]here’s a lot of talk about bravery and courage for people who were opting out of living their lives. I didn’t like the inverse of that,” Garmer-Jones said, according to a Nov. 13 article in the Liverpool Daily Post. “To call this action ‘brave,’ ‘courageous’ and ‘selfless’ implies that those of us who battle on are ‘cowardly’ and ‘selfish,’ which is unfair and untrue.
“I am seriously concerned that this might have a severely detrimental effect on anyone who lives with disability, or cares for someone in this situation . . . ,” said Garner-Jones, who lectures part time at Liverpool University and tutors children in English.
American bioethics specialist Wesley Smith said of Garner-Jones’ comments, “None of us should have to justify being alive. But this is what we are becoming. We ignore the warning signs at our own peril.
“All of the advocacy and tub thumping promoting the euphemist phrase ‘death with dignity,’ accompanied by widespread media and the public support for the suicides of people with disabilities or serious illnesses, sends the insidious message to similarly situated people that they are ‘burdens’ or do not have lives worth living,” Smith wrote on his weblog.
The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission works to protect the sanctity of human life. If you would like to learn more about this issue, additional resources are available here. If your church is interested in purchasing bulletin inserts or other materials on the sanctity of human life, please visit our online bookstore and erlc.com.
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