Category: United States

Health professionals participated in cruelty and torture

Medical, Military, and Ethics Experts Say Health Professionals Designed and Participated in Cruel, Inhumane, and Degrading Treatment and Torture of Detainees

New York, NY — An independent panel of military, ethics, medical, public health, and legal experts today charged that U.S. military and intelligence agencies directed doctors and psychologists working in U.S. military detention centers to violate standard ethical principles and medical standards to avoid infliction of harm. The Task Force on Preserving Medical Professionalism in National Security Detention Centers (see attached) concludes that since September 11, 2001, the Department of Defense (DoD) and CIA improperly demanded that U.S. military and intelligence agency health professionals collaborate in intelligence gathering and security practices in a way that inflicted severe harm on detainees in U.S. custody.

These practices included “designing, participating in, and enabling torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment” of detainees, according to the report. Although the DoD has taken steps to address some of these practices in recent years, including instituting a committee to review medical ethics concerns at Guantanamo Bay Prison, the Task Force says the changed roles for health professionals and anemic ethical standards adopted within the military remain in place. [Full report]

 

San Diego health workers assured of conscience rights at White Mass

EWTN News

Anthony DeBellis and Carl Bunderson

At the San Diego diocese’s second annual White Mass, Bishop Cirilo Flores  reminded the health care workers in attendance that their profession is an  expression of their Catholic faith.

“Some of you in the health care profession are facing issues of conscience  rights. You have the right to live your faith,” he preached at the Oct. 12 Mass.  “We must assist the government always, but worshiping God does not just mean at  Mass or other celebrations within the four walls of the church.”

“You live your faith in the world. You have the right and the obligation to  your conscience, which is paramount, and the government should not try to  restrict or force regulations that violate your consciences.”

The Mass was sponsored by both St. Gianna Physicians’ Guild and  Culture of Life Family Services,  and drew Catholics from across the diocese.

The “White Mass” is named for the traditional white coats and uniforms worn  by medical personnel and is a special way to honor health care professionals. In  addition to physicians and nurses, the Mass honors hospital personnel,  pharmacists, mental health specialists, hospice workers, medical students,  pastoral care givers and others. Read more

American Civil Liberties Union petitions against Catholic hospitals

The Washington State branch of the ACLU has prepared a petition to the state Governor to “ensure that religious ideology does not dictate the health care services a patient may choose.”  The organization asserts that patients are put “at risk” when hospitals are subject to religious guidelines. [NCR]

Update on American HHS controversy

The Becket Fund reports that there are 79 court cases involving 200 plaintiffs now moving through the U.S. courts, challenging the federal regulation requiring employers with over 50 employees to provide health insurance for birth control and surgical sterilization.  Of the 40 lawsuits filed by for-profit corporations, 32 have been granted injunctions against the law, and only six refused.

 

Obamacare and religious liberty

 A corporate conscience?

The Economist

S.M.

WHEN the Citizens United decision came down in 2010, 80% of Americans were unhappy to learn that political speech by corporations was protected under the first amendment. Three years later an effort to undermine Obamacare by expanding the constitutional rights of corporations is quietly gaining ground in the courts. The campaign, summarised here, includes some 73 cases challenging the law’s requirement that health-insurance plans provided by large employers include coverage for birth control. (A limited exemption—which Republicans are trying to expand—applies to religious organisations.) This contraceptive mandate, detractors say, presents organisations owned by religious individuals opposed to certain forms of birth control with a dilemma: abandon their beliefs or pay a hefty fine of up to $100 per employee per day.

Conestoga Wood Specialties, a cabinet manufacturer with 950 employees in Pennsylvania, is one of the plaintiffs challenging the mandate. Conestoga is owned and run by the Hahns, a Mennonite family that considers two forms of birth control—the emergency contraceptives known as Plan B and ella—to be the sinful taking of embryonic life. The family has objected to Obamacare’s mandate on constitutional grounds and under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), a 1993 law requiring that “substantial burdens” on religious exercise be justified by a compelling state interest. . .[Read more]