Posted on 04/16/2009 9:39:09 PM PDT by hocndoc
TMA, AMA, and state medical societies across the country support the Obama administration's plan to rescind a federal rule that prohibits recipients of federal funds from forcing physicians and other health care professionals to participate in actions they find religiously or morally objectionable.
In a letter to Acting Health and Human Services (HHS) Administrator Charles E. Johnson, the groups said the Conscience Rights of Health Care Providers regulation, adopted by the Bush administration in December, is unnecessary and could have far-reaching implications. They said it "could undermine patients' access to vital medical care and information, impede advances in biomedical research, and create confusion and uncertainty among physicians, other health care professionals, and health care institutions about their legal and ethical obligations to treat patients."
They wrote that they support "strong conscience protections" for physicians, residents, and medical students and other health professionals, especially when it comes to abortion. No physician, hospital, or hospital employee should be required to perform an act that violates good medical judgment or personally held moral principles. "However, while we support the legitimate conscience rights of individual health care professionals, the exercise of these rights must be balanced against the fundamental obligations of the medical profession and physicians' paramount responsibility and commitment to serving the needs of their patients. As advocates for our patients, we strongly support patients' access to comprehensive reproductive health care and freedom of communication between physicians and their patients, and oppose government interference in the practice of medicine or the use of health care funding mechanisms to deny established and accepted medical care to any segment of the population."
Other points in the letter include:
* Abortion education should be encouraged "so medical students receive a satisfactory knowledge of the medical, ethical, legal, and psychological principles associated with termination of pregnancy …" The letter adds that "the observation of, attendance at, or any direct or indirect participation in abortion should not be required." Resident training should include "specific educational standards for the knowledge and skills associated with pregnancy termination that allow an exclusion for individuals or residency programs with religious/moral objections or legal restrictions."
* Several provisions and definitions in the rule "are ambiguous, overly broad, and could lead to differing interpretations causing unnecessary confusion among health care institutions and professionals, thereby potentially impeding patients' access to needed health care services and information." The rule, for example, defines "health service program" as "any plan or program that provides health benefits, whether directly, through insurance, or otherwise, which is funded, in whole or in part" by HHS. "This definition inappropriately expands the scope of the conscience provisions beyond family planning and abortion services to include virtually any medical treatment or service, or biomedical and behavioral research," the letter says.
* The rule does not address how conscience rights of individuals and institutions apply in emergencies.
Action, April 15, 2009
Last Published: 4/15/2009
The TMA press "Alert" is a shallow statement which ignores the history and facts behind the ruling and addresses the "exercise" of the right to conscience as though it is dependent on circumstances and can be "rescinded."
The individual right not to act is called "liberty." As an inalienable right, liberty cannot be given away or taken. It cannot be "balanced" by actions of the State or by organized medicine, only infringed upon.
The ruling is only a clarification of the many laws in place at this time to protect the right not to act of health care professionals. It began as a response to a push by the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology to change the laws and their own Certification process. This move not only overturned thousands of years of medical ethics, it also put all of us at increased risk for malpractice and civil legal penalties.
I'll tell you what the regulation meant: Planned Parenthood couldn't ask potential employees their views on abortion and *neither* could residency programs! Just think how many pro-life doctors might be trained in Obstetrics, Gynecology, Family Medicine and Pediatrics!
Please check with your State Medical Association and your local docs. Has your State Association moved to infringe on your right to conscience?
For more information on the regulation, see the Freedom2Care website, http://www.freedom2care.org/
Freedom and Liberty will die to thunderous applause
How’s your State Medical Association doing? Will you lose your family doctor, OB, or pediatrician if they are told to abort, refer, or lose their license?
They want to compel anyone involved in medicine to kill innocent unborn babies, either directly or indirectly. Indirectly, by forcing medics to become accessories before the fact by requiring them to to “refer” patients to abortionists. This is an extreme position that merits an extreme reaction.
The result will be thousands of people leaving the medical profession rather than be forced by a fascist government into committing crimes agains humanity.
This wonderful dodgy gummit wants to co-opt individual doctors to do its dirty work. It dare not be so bold as to create some central point, say 1-800-GET-ABORTION, where its patsies may go.
They will ultimately decide just who can enter the field of so-called medicine. Instead of the Hippocratic Oath, you will take the Hypocrit Oath. Do No Harm turns to What Harm?? Planned Grandparenthood Clinics spring up - giving general practictioners a place to practice palliative care as Gramma dies. Only Democrats can enter medical school as they share in the need to save health care dollars and understand the need to make room on this planet for others, leading to a mandatory death age....
If they did, I'm not aware of it. I checked the website of the Healthcare Association of New York State (HANYS), but I'm not a member.
I’m starting the Underground Medical Association or UMA.
Perhaps, soon, I’ll have to call it the Ethical-But-Illegal Medical Association.
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