Editorial, Opinion Piece Criticize HHS Provider 'Conscience' Rule

Main Category: Sexual Health / STDs
Article Date: 24 Dec 2008 - 3:00 PST

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An editorial and opinion piece on Tuesday responded to the new HHS "conscience" rule, which will take effect Jan. 18 and allow employees of entities that receive federal grants to refuse to provide medical information and services they object to on moral or religious grounds. Summaries appear below.

~ Spokane Spokesman-Review: "Two things are certain: The rule will not stand, and it will make a mess," a Spokesman-Review editorial says, adding, "It would have been better if [Bush] administration officials had just accepted defeat, but they decided to knock over the furniture on the way out." Although "the rule talks about a worker's conscience in general, this is clearly about abortion and other reproductive issues," according to the editorial. It notes that U.S. laws already "protect health care workers from being involved in abortions," and the 1964 Civil Rights Act "protects workers from discrimination based on religion." The editorial says that HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt has encouraged "health care providers and patients to have upfront, frank conversations about delicate matters, but the ruling doesn't require that. In fact, it doesn't even say objecting caregivers have to deliver complete information or suggest options. They can just refuse and walk away." According to the editorial, "The rule would hit low-income women particularly hard, because they rely more on federally subsidized facilities." It continues that the "good news" is that the rule will not stand and that Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) have introduced legislation to block the rule. The editorial concludes, "This was a petty move by the administration, and it deserves to be reversed as soon as possible. Health care providers can work this out with their employees without affecting patients or violating civil rights law" (Spokane Spokesman-Review, 12/23).


~ Jill June, Des Moines Register: The rule "truly makes ideology more important than the doctor-patient relationship, an ideology that the American electorate soundly rejected in the past election," June -- CEO and president of Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa -- writes in a Register opinion piece. She urges readers to "[c]ontact your elected leaders and demand congressional action now so that patients will get the quality care they deserve." June writes, "[I]deology in the exam room will now supersede your medical health," adding that under the rule, "if a doctor, nurse or receptionist disagrees with your choice of services, your lifestyle or your beliefs, he or she can deny you care, and health care employers are powerless to prevent or correct it." She continues, "The regulation is not about health care workers being forced to perform abortions; it's about government forcing its hand on saying whom health care employers can hire." According to June, "Health care providers are now the only industry that will be required to hire people who may not support their mission, threatening collateral damage through the entire industry." She continues that the rule "severely limits the rights of women across the county, effectively saying that government and religious and moral ideology know what's best for female patients." The rule is "so broad and so vague" that "potentially any service can be challenged on the grounds of moral objection," including birth control, fertility treatments, family planning services and health care for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals, June says. "It amounts to information being left out of doctor-patient discussions, referrals not being made and certain patients being treated as second-class citizens," she continues. June writes that although President-elect Barack Obama "cannot erase this measure with the stroke of a pen," some members of Congress have spoken out against the measure. June says, "As the economy weakens and more people require the low-cost and free services offered by organizations" such as Planned Parenthood, the new regulation "will remind patients that they come last in the health care arena. People will be denied care because of personal objection, and employers will be helpless in terms of protecting the patient" (June, Des Moines Register, 12/23).

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