{"id":759,"date":"2002-09-25T12:45:41","date_gmt":"2002-09-25T12:45:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.consciencelaws.org\/?p=759"},"modified":"2013-08-02T19:13:48","modified_gmt":"2013-08-02T19:13:48","slug":"a-doctors-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.consciencelaws.org\/?p=759","title":{"rendered":"A Doctor’s Choice"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Washington Times <\/strong><\/em>
\n<\/strong>25 September, 2002.
\nReproduced with permission<\/em><\/p>\n

Dick Armey<\/p>\n

Dick Armey was the Majority Leader (Republican)\u00a0 in the U.S. House of Representatives when the following opinion column was written.<\/em><\/h5>\n

The vast majority of all hospitals – public and private – do not get involved in abortion. In fact, 86 percent of all hospitals did not\u00a0 perform a single abortion last year.<\/p>\n

There is a reason for that. Most\u00a0\u00a0health care providers are interested in protecting and saving human\u00a0life, not taking it. Government shouldn’t force them to take part in\u00a0\u00a0actions – such as performing abortions – against their beliefs, morals\u00a0or religion.<\/p>\n

In 1996, Congress enacted legislation ending state and federal\u00a0discrimination against health care providers that do not perform abortions.\u00a0 In a series of court opinions and rulings, activist\u00a0 judges are flouting the will of Congress and ordering hospitals, not to promote life, but to end it.\u00a0 They are telling doctors and nurses\u00a0to suspend their most strongly held beliefs and perform a practice so heinous that even progressive\u00a0\u00a0hospitals have rejected.<\/p>\n

So today, the House of Representatives will consider the Abortion\u00a0Non-Discrimination Act (ANDA)<\/a>\u00a0 and right the wrong perpetrated by liberal courts.\u00a0 The bill signals Congress’ intent in one simple yet powerful message – no health care provider should ever be forced to do\u00a0something that violates their moral, ethical, or religious beliefs.<\/p>\n

While there is deep disagreement in America about whether abortion\u00a0 should be legal, nearly all Americans would agree that no one should be\u00a0forced to have an abortion or to perform an abortion if they don’t want to. That, however, hasn’t stopped some on the extreme fringe of this\u00a0 issue from trying to force hospitals to provide abortions anyway.<\/p>\n

Valley Hospital in Palmer, Alaska, is one such example. Located about 50\u00a0 miles east of Anchorage, the hospital’s board implemented a policy in 1990 barring abortion procedures except in cases of rape, incest and danger to the life of the mother.\u00a0 The hospital was sued, and a judge arbitrarily ruled that because Valley Hospital received some government money, it was a “quasi-government entity” and had to provide\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 abortions. The hospital appealed the case to the Alaska Supreme Court, citing a state law that protected its right of conscience.\u00a0 The\u00a0Supreme Court ruled against the hospital and, in one fell swoop, threw out the state’s conscience law.<\/p>\n

Congress’ conscience guarantees were also overturned in New Jersey. When Rancocas Hospital in Willingboro, N.J., was purchased by Our Lady of Lourdes Healthcare Services, a new policy was instituted against\u00a0 performing abortions. Our Lady of Lourdes, as the name suggests, is a Catholic agency, and the Catholic church believes abortion is wrong.\u00a0\u00a0The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey sued. It argued that\u00a0 if Our Lady of Lourdes didn’t want to allow abortions in its hospital, it should provide a separate building on the hospital’s campus for\u00a0 that purpose. This, obviously, made no sense to the hospital. The ACLU also argued that the hospital was duty-bound to provide abortions\u00a0because its original mission statement called for “comprehensive” health care services. The ACLU conveniently forgot that when the mission statement was written in\u00a01961, abortion was a felony.<\/p>\n

So much is at stake in this bill.\u00a0Without its passage, the viability and integrity of our country’s health care system are in jeopardy. In this age of managed care and\u00a0\u00a0skyrocketing health care costs, hospitals are merging in order to survive. If courts demand that pro-abortion policies be a condition of\u00a0merging – as a number already have – there will be fewer of these cost-saving partnerships.<\/p>\n

Many of these alliances involve denominational hospitals – hospitals\u00a0 principally organized to serve the poor and needy. They have been and\u00a0will continue to be the first victims of court-imposed abortion\u00a0mandates, for in many cases they cannot practice medicine at all under\u00a0these conditions.\u00a0 The poor and vulnerable will be the ultimate casualties when these facilities have to close.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Washington Times 25 September, 2002. Reproduced with permission Dick Armey Dick Armey was the Majority Leader (Republican)\u00a0 in the U.S. House of Representatives when the following opinion column was written. The vast majority of all hospitals – public and private – do not get involved in abortion. In fact, 86 percent of all hospitals … Continue reading “A Doctor’s Choice”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5432,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,643,4,7,28],"tags":[2080,62,133,184,357],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion","category-christianity-catholicism","category-commentary","category-law","category-usa","tag-abortion-non-discrimination-act","tag-american-civil-liberties-union-aclu","tag-dick-armey","tag-hospitals","tag-valley-hospital"],"yoast_head":"\r\nA Doctor's Choice - Protection of Conscience Project News<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\r\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.consciencelaws.org\/?p=759\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Doctor's Choice - Protection of Conscience Project News\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Washington Times 25 September, 2002. Reproduced with permission Dick Armey Dick Armey was the Majority Leader (Republican)\u00a0 in the U.S. House of Representatives when the following opinion column was written. The vast majority of all hospitals – public and private – do not get involved in abortion. 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