Category: Law

Letter to the Editor,
Detroit News,
6 September, 2008

Reproduced with permission

Jonathan Imbody*

Laura Berman’s Aug. 26 column, “Keep the choice in hands of patients,” mischaracterizes a conscience-protecting regulation recently proposed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as somehow pitting “health care workers with strong religious and moral beliefs against women needing care.”

The regulation would finally implement 35 years of civil rights laws passed by Congress to prevent discrimination and coercion against health care professionals who adhere to life-affirming standards of medical ethics such as the Hippocratic Oath. Such standards not only affirm the inherent value of the unborn and the elderly; they also aim to protect patients from sexual abuse, financial exploitation and violation of privacy in healthcare.

Two of five of our members report being pressured to violate standards of medical ethics. Residents report being denied clinical privileges for refusing to perform abortions. Medical students report switching out of obstetrics and gynecology for fear of reprisals and coercion to do abortions. The pro-abortion American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recently issued a position statement that all obstetricians are obliged to participate in abortion. Conscientiously objecting physicians face an implicit threat of loss of licensure.

The real threat to choice comes from perpetuating these violations of healthcare professionals’ civil rights, which ultimately results in patients losing access to their most compassionate and conscientious physicians.

Letter to the Editor
The Washington Post
4 September, 2008

Reproduced with permission

Jonathan Imbody*

The misunderstanding expressed in the Aug. 26 letter, “Health Care’s Conscientious Objectors,” illustrates the need for the conscience-protecting regulation recently proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services.

The regulation would implement 35 years of civil rights laws passed by Congress to protect health-care professionals from discrimination, coercion and job loss for adhering to life-affirming ethical standards. The regulation would simply disallow forcing professionals to perform elective abortions and other procedures that violate millennia of medical ethics codes.

Contrary to the letter’s assertion, health-care professionals would continue to care as always for wounded soldiers, AIDS patients, post-abortive teenagers, felons and drunk drivers. In fact, the regulations would protect patient access to the compassionate, conscientious health-care professionals who are among the most dedicated to caring for such individuals.

Letter to the Editor
The Daily News,
Harrisonburg, VA
2 September, 2008

Reproduced with permission

Jonathan Imbody*

Shirley Kirkwood’s recent Open Forum wrongly suggests that a regulation proposed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is somehow aimed at blocking contraception use (“Abortion Is A Religious Right,” Aug. 21).

That’s nearly as implausible a stretch as the notion that ending human lives is a religious right. The agency this year alone will spend over $1.6 billion on “family planning” programs.

What has been long established is the right to follow one’s conscience according to the dictates of faith and ethics.

That’s what the regulation will protect, as health care professionals push back against a culture that devalues life and work to restore life-affirming values such as those expressed in the Hippocratic Oath, the Judeo-Christian Scriptures and standards applied to medical ethics.

Letter to the Editor

Salt Lake City Tribune
2 September, 2008
Reproduced with permission

Jonathan Imbody*

The Tribune editorial “Going too far: Proposed rule affects contraceptive information” (Our View, Aug. 26) wrongly charges that a recently proposed federal regulation will somehow “force poor women to limit their health-care choices to just those that are morally acceptable to taxpayer-funded providers.”

The regulation implements 35 years of civil liberty laws protecting health care professionals from coercion, discrimination and job loss for following life-affirming standards of medical ethics, such as the Hippocratic oath. It does not outlaw or hinder any legal procedure or prescription, nor does it prevent a patient’s access to information about contraception or abortion, which is readily available.

An intolerant approach to individual conscience is fomenting a crisis of access in health care, particularly in obstetrics and gynecology, where doctors and medical students are leaving for fear of reprisals or coercion to do abortions.

These regulations will protect health care professionals who adhere to high ethical and moral standards – those most likely to provide compassionate care for under-served patients.