Writing on behalf of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Timothy Cardinal Dolan has again stated that the Conference objects to the administration regulation requiring employers with over 50 employees to provide health insurance coverage for contraception, and finds the accommodation offered by the administration unacceptable. Civil suits against the regulation continue to make their way through U.S. courts.
Category: United States
Arguments for the Protection of Conscience
Activist complains that Catholic hospitals won’t facilitate assisted suicide
In an opinion piece published in the Seattle Times, Tom Preston, a retired physician who was one of the leaders of the successful assisted suicide lobby in Washington State, complains that Catholic hospitals in the state will not facilitate assisted suicide. “Throughout Washington,” he claims, “doctors are being silenced and forced to adhere to religious rules that prevent any participation in death with dignity,” and that “many Washingtonians are denied access to legal and humane end-of-life medical care.”
Writers with a different view of assisted suicide would respond that Catholic hospitals provide “humane end-of life medical care” as well as “death with dignity,” though not assisted suicide. In any case, the position taken by Preston demonstrates that the legalization of morally contentious procedures like euthanasia and assisted suicide tends to generate political and social pressures inimical to freedom of conscience among health care workers and institutions.
American OB/Gyn professors demand compulsory referral by objecting physicians
Time Magazine reports upon a statement signed by 100 American professors of obstetrics and gynaecology under the headline, “Doctors Urge More Hospitals to Perform Abortions.” The statement expresses frustration that abortion policies and laws envisioned by 100 predecessors who signed a 1972 letter have not materialized. Notably, the statement reiterates the demand of the original letter that objecting physicians should be compelled to refer for abortion, something many objectors find unacceptable, and insists that all hospitals that admit women should be forced to admit women for abortions – and, presumably, provide them. This would be unacceptable to denominational institutions that object to the procedure.
The Time article notes that only 14% of American obstetrician-gynaecologists perform abortion, and hospitals provide only 4% of abortions done annually. The rest are provided in free-standing clinics. The signatories stress the need for hospitals to respond to the demand for second trimester abortions, which are even more controversial than the much more numerous first trimester procedures. It does not appear that the signatories recognize that requiring hospitals to provide second trimester abortions would likely generate more dramatic conflicts of conscience for health care workers who might be pressured to participate.
Doctor-ethicist sees ongoing efforts to weaken conscience protections
Boston Pilot
NEW ORLEANS (CNS) — Fine print contained in the Affordable Care Act has weakened conscience protections for physicians who oppose abortion, sterilization or other medical practices on religious or moral grounds, a doctor and ethicist told the American Academy of Fertility Care Professionals.
Dr. John Brehany, executive director and ethicist of the Catholic Medical Association, said with the passage of the new health care law, commonly called Obamacare, “the federal government is posing real threats to faithful health care professionals.”
“While Obamacare itself does have a couple of conscience-protection provisions built in, the fact is, if you look at the big picture, which are the old federal laws and what was achieved from 1973 to 2004, we are now missing some important protections, and we are now vague on how these old laws will carry forward into the future,” Brehany said Aug. 10 during told the academy’s annual gathering in New Orleans. . . . [Full text]