Category: News Releases

Cardinal Rigali Urges Congress To Respect Conscience Rights

NEWS RELEASE
Office of Media Relations 08-106
For Immediate Release
July 18, 2008

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

Responding to objections to anticipated federal HHS  regulations protecting health care providers’ fundamental rights of conscience,  Cardinal Justin Rigali, chairman of the United States  Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, today wrote to  all members of Congress defending “efforts to reaffirm and implement laws on  conscience protection.”

The New York Times on July 15 reported that it had obtained an alleged draft of regulations soon to be issued  by the Department of Health and Human Services, to clarify and enforce federal  laws on respect for the moral and religious convictions of health care personnel  in programs receiving federal funds.  Pro-abortion organizations and some  members of Congress have already attacked the as-yet-unpublished regulations,  saying they are unwarranted and could limit “access” to abortion and birth  control.

Reacting to these criticisms, Cardinal Rigali said this “should be a  matter of agreement among members who call themselves ‘pro-life’ and  ‘pro-choice’: the freedom of health care providers to serve the public without  violating their most deeply held moral and religious convictions on the sanctity  of human life.”

“Congress has passed numerous laws protecting rights of  conscience in health care, beginning in 1973,” said the Cardinal, and these laws  address sterilization and other issues in addition to abortion.  “The  critics’ surprise that conscience protection may apply beyond the specific issue  of abortion seems based on a lack of knowledge of existing federal law… If the  Administration is preparing regulations along these lines, it would simply be  performing its proper task in an area of law where that is long overdue.”

Cardinal Rigali said the charge that respect for conscience rights undermines  “access” to abortion and other procedures contradicts pro-abortion groups’  longstanding claim that only “a tiny minority of religious zealots” object to  their agenda.  In any case, he said, “patients with pro-life convictions,  including women who require a physician’s care for themselves and their unborn  children during pregnancy, deserve ‘access’ to health care professionals who do  not have contempt for their religious and moral convictions or for the lives of  their children.”

“This issue,” he said, “provides self-described ‘pro-choice’  advocates with an opportunity to demonstrate their true convictions… [I]s the  ‘pro-choice’ label a misleading mask for an agenda of actively promoting and  even imposing morally controversial procedures on those who conscientiously hold  different views?”

CCWA Applauds HHS for Upholding Healthcare Providers’ Rights

NEWS RELEASE
15 July, 2008

Concerned Women for America

WASHINGTON – –  According to The New York Times, the Bush administration plans to propose regulations to comply with federal laws to protect patients and healthcare professionals from being forced to provide controversial drugs and procedures such as abortion.  The newspaper reports that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has drafted regulations “to ensure that federal money does not ‘support morally coercive or discriminatory practices or policies in violation of federal law.'” Recipients of federal health programs (such as hospitals and clinics) would have to certify that they will not refuse to hire healthcare providers who object to abortion or abortifacients (drugs or devices that can cause an early abortion).  The regulation defines abortion as “any of the various procedures — including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action — that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation.”

“For over 35 years, federal laws have protected the conscientious rights of healthcare professionals, but they were not fully implemented for lack of thorough regulations to enforce them,” stated Wendy Wright, President of Concerned Women for America (CWA).  “As more controversial drugs and procedures get introduced, and additional pressure is put on healthcare providers to either compromise their moral commitments or lose their jobs, the need has become greater for regulations to catch up with the law.”

“As patients, we rely on healthcare professionals to provide ethical advice and treatments. Patients will lose trust in the healthcare field if professionals are gagged from giving ethical and well-informed advice or forced to commit procedures or provide drugs that take an innocent life.  If healthcare professionals are denied the right to live out their moral beliefs, patients will suffer the consequences.”  Abortion proponents reportedly oppose the proposed regulations.  “Clearly, abortion advocates do not believe in the ‘right to choose’ if the choice is not to participate in abortion or provide drugs that can take the life of a human being.  The regulation applies to abortion, which is clearly defined as an action that terminates a human life before or after implantation.  When abortion advocates claim this regulation would discourage providing ‘contraception’ it reveals that their definition of ‘contraception’ includes drugs that would cause abortion.”

Contact: Natalie Bell, Concerned Women for America,   202-488-7000  ext. 126 Concerned Women for America is the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization.

CMA physicians call on HHS to protect patients with regulations upholding healthcare professionals’ rights

NEWS RELEASE
July 15, 2008
For Immediate Release

Christian Medical Association

Washington, D.C.–July 15, 2008– Responding to a story published this morning by the New York Times , physicians of the Christian Medical Association called  on Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael O. Leavitt to publish  regulations in accord with federal laws protecting patients and healthcare  professionals in decisions relating to controversial procedures and  prescriptions. The New York Times indicated that the Department has drafted regulations “to ensure that  federal money does not ‘support morally coercive or discriminatory practices or  policies in violation of federal law.'”

“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. The CMA  letter also noted, “An informal survey of Christian Medical Association members  found that over 41 percent of respondents had been “pressured to compromise  Biblical or ethical convictions.”

Anecdotal accounts suggest that few persecuted  healthcare professionals actually know their conscience rights and that they  typically simply submit to pressure by resigning. Unless pro-life professionals  are equipped to know and apply their conscience rights, they actually stand at risk of being weeded out from the profession altogether .

Dr. Gene Rudd, Executive Vice President of the CMA, noted, “From the 1973 Church  Amendment to the more recent Hyde-Weldon Amendment, Congress has recognized the  importance of protecting patients and their healthcare professionals from  political pressures on these vital issues.”Patients are protected when physicians follow objective ethical codes, such as  those expressed in the Hippocratic Oath and the Judeo-Christian Scriptures. We  recognize that some individuals choose to refuse to follow these principles, and  under current law, that is their choice. “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.”

Contact: Becky Gerber  Telephone: 888-231-2637    E-mail: becky.gerber@cmda.org The Christian Medical Association is equipped with Ku Band Digital Uplink  satellite and ISDN lines.

Planned Parenthood and “Anti-Choice” Rhetoric

News Release

Protection of Conscience Project

Planned Parenthood Alberta is recycling the accusation that physicians who object to abortion may “scare” patients with “misinformation” or “impose their moral beliefs.” This smear may be unfairly applied to conscientious objectors who follow the guidelines of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta (CPSA).

The CMA advises physicians to inform a patient when their personal morality would influence their recommendations or practice, and to advise patients of their objections to abortion. The CPSA expects physicians to provide information to patients seeking abortion so that they can “make informed decisions on all available options for their pregnancies, including termination.”

On the other hand, objecting physicians can hardly be expected to present morally controversial procedures as morally uncontroversial, or in such a way as to indicate that they approve of them or are indifferent to them. Moreover, the information they reasonably believe necessary to permit the patient to make a truly “informed decision” may be more comprehensive or in other respects different from what Planned Parenthood is accustomed to provide its clients.

An interest group like Planned Parenthood might well stigmatize such discussion as ‘moralizing’ and providing ‘misinformation’. Partisan polemics of this sort do not provide a basis for sound policy making.

Planned Parenthood Alberta is compiling a list of what it calls “anti-choice doctors.” If it is desirable to help patients find physicians who share their outlook on moral issues, it would be preferable for doctors to identify themselves, perhaps through the College of Physicians and Surgeons or professional associations.

But if Planned Parenthood persists in its plan to identify “anti-choice doctors”, it should include in its list the names of physicians who believe that their colleagues should be forced to provide or facilitate morally controversial procedures.

Related: Planned Parenthood and “Anti-Choice Rhetoric” (commentary)

Pro-life nurse reaches settlement agreement with Oregon health department over request for religious accommodation, abortion

Rutherford Institute Attorneys, Health Department Agree on Resolution to Implement New Policies

Salem, Ore.— Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute have reached a mutually agreeable resolution with the Marion County Health Department on behalf of Janice Turner, a public health nurse who lost her job with the health department due to her deeply held religious belief that life begins at conception. The settlement agreement provides for the enactment of two new policies.  The first policy guarantees that all clients who receive emergency contraception, a.k.a. “the morning after pill,” will be informed in easily understandable terms that it functions by preventing the implantation of a fertilized ovum if conception has already occurred. The second policy, a general statement of employees’ rights to religious belief and expression within the workplace, prevents discrimination based upon religious or moral beliefs regarding abortion or contraception and requires the health department to accommodate those beliefs.  Patterned after existing Conscience Clause legislation, this policy ensures that employees who refuse to accept job duties that contradict their religious or moral beliefs regarding abortion or contraception can do so without fear of being fired, demoted, transferred or disciplined.

Turner, who worked for the Health Department from 1990 until July 2001, had early on in her employment expressed her religious opposition to abortion and requested accommodation from having to discuss or promote abortion procedures with her patients. According to Turner, her initial supervisor accommodated her religious beliefs and allowed her to refer those patients wanting to receive emergency contraception or information about abortion to another nurse. However, in 1995, a new supervisor was appointed to the Women’s Clinic who declared herself to be pro-choice and allegedly acted in a manner intolerant of other viewpoints. According to Turner, this new supervisor stated her expectation that everyone on staff discuss emergency contraception with patients as “a method of contraception that will prevent a pregnancy” and discouraged the nurses from referencing it as a possible abortifacient.  Turner claims that her supervisor continually reiterated her distaste for Turner’s pro-life views regarding emergency contraception and repeatedly told her that she “was not a complete nurse.”  During Turner’s final evaluation, the supervisor warned Turner that her position could be cut in the department budget, and if Turner wanted another position in the department, she would have to be willing to dispense emergency contraception. Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute filed a complaint in Janice Turner’s behalf last year in U.S. District Court.

“This is a timely issue which brings to light the importance of protecting health care workers’ rights, especially those who have sincerely held religious beliefs regarding abortion,” stated John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute.  “It is also heartening to see that women, some of whom may have religious beliefs against taking an abortifacient, will be given complete information regarding the effect of the morning-after pill on a possibly fertilized ovum and its medical implications.”

The Rutherford Institute is an international, nonprofit civil liberties organization committed to defending constitutional and human rights.

Nisha N. Mohammed Ph: (434) 978-3888, ext. 604;
Pager: 800-946-4646, Pin #: 1478257
Email: Nisha N. Mohammed