Letter to the Editor,
Detroit News,
6 September, 2008
Reproduced with permission
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.