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Obama's Conscience Pledge
Notre Dame Promise Raises More Questions Than Answers
BY Sue Ellin Browder REGISTER CORRESPONDENT
June 7-13, 2009 Issue |
Posted 5/29/09 at 10:52 AM
WASHINGTON — Twenty-nine members of
Congress have called on the Obama administration to make good the president’s
pledge at Notre Dame to support a “sensible conscience clause.”
Conscience clauses
protect doctors, nurses and pharmacists who refuse to participate in
abortions or dispense abortion pills from being threatened or fired.
In his commencement speech at the
University of Notre Dame May 17, Obama told students and faculty one way to
find “common ground” on abortion is for the federal government to draft a
“sensible conscience clause” for those “who disagree with abortion.”
In response, Congressmen Jim
Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., and Chris Smith, R-N.J., sent a letter to the president
calling on him to publicly “put an end” to his plan to scrap the Department of
Health and Human Services’ (HHS) conscience-protection rules put into place by
the Bush administration.
Sensenbrenner also sent a letter,
signed by 28 other members of Congress, to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius,
who’s responsible for enforcing conscience-protection laws. Sebelius, a
Catholic, is pro-abortion.
“I am pleased the president says he
wants to help protect life and the rights of health-care workers,” the letter
to Sebelius read. “However, we need to hold his feet to the fire and ensure his
actions match his well-scripted rhetoric. If he is declaring his administration
to be one of choice, then health-care workers should have the choice to not
perform an abortion without fear or coercion.”
Cardinal Francis George of Chicago,
president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, also praised Obama’s
promise to support conscience clauses.
“Catholic providers, in particular,
make a large and essential contribution to health care in our society,” the
cardinal said. “Essential steps to protect these conscience rights will
strengthen our health-care system and enhance many patients’ access to
essential life-affirming care.” In the United States, there are 562 Catholic
hospitals treating more than 85 million people a year.
Strong support for the rules crosses
partisan lines. In late March, Senate Democrats Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Bob
Casey of Pennsylvania also sent a letter to the White House, urging Obama to
preserve the conscience-protection rules.
“Discriminating against health-care
providers because of their consciences or forcing coercion into their practices
would be a substantial deviation from our shared goal of reducing abortions in
America,” Casey and Nelson said.
What Does ‘Sensible’ Mean?
Dr. David Stevens, CEO of the
Christian Medical Association, expressed concerns about the president’s use of
the word “sensible” when referring to the drafting of a conscience clause. “I
thought we had a sensible one,” Stevens said.
“You’re seeing the president use all
these code words. And what he’s saying essentially is that they’re going to
re-craft something and call it ‘sensible’ and call the rules we have now
‘insensible,’ and then limit our conscience rights,” Stevens said. “That’s the
only way I can interpret it.”
However, he added, “I hope I’m
wrong.”
Threats to health-care providers’
conscience rights appear to be rampant and increasing. In a recent survey of
Christian Medical Association members, 40% reported they’d been pressured to
compromise their convictions; 24% had lost a position, promotion or
compensation as a result, and 88% thought the problem is getting worse.
Other Protections
Are the HHS rules the only federal
regulations that protect medical students from not having to train for
abortions, doctors from not having to do them, and pharmacists from not having
to dispense abortion pills?
Not entirely.
Three federal laws, including the
Weldon Amendment, also protect health-care providers’ freedom to practice
according to their deeply held religious, moral or ethical convictions.
The Weldon Amendment, an
appropriations-bill rider that has to be passed annually by Congress, has been
called “the proverbial 800-pound gorilla” of conscience-protection clauses. It
has long been targeted by abortion lobbyists, who would like nothing better
than to see it defeated in 2010. “Congress is now beginning the appropriations
for next year’s budget, and there’s great fear the Weldon Amendment will be
stripped out then,” said John Brehany, executive director of the Catholic
Medical Association.
Under the Weldon Amendment,
California alone stands to lose $49 billion in federal funds if it
discriminates against institutions (such as Catholic hospitals) or individuals
who refuse to provide, pay for, cover or refer for abortions.
“One reason the Weldon Amendment was
passed is that California has a criminal statute for any physician who refuses
to perform an abortion on an ‘emergency’ basis. And the Weldon Amendment
protects physicians against that,” Brehany said.
The HHS regulations add no new
health-care conscience protections. But, if enforced, the rules would put teeth
into laws like the Weldon Amendment. Among other things, the HHS rules set up a
complaint procedure for doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health-care
workers who’ve had their conscience rights violated.
Stevens said doctors and other
health-care providers don’t need new rules: “All we need to do is enforce the
laws on the books, and things will be fine.”
A Polarized Debate
Pro-abortion lobbyists have another
name for the HHS conscience-protection rule: They call it the “Bush Health-Care
Denial Rule.”
What is it about conscience
protections the abortion lobby hates so much?
Repeated e-mails and phone calls to the American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU) and NARAL Pro-Choice America went unanswered. But an ACLU press release
opposing the HHS rule charged that “it allows health-care workers and
facilities to refuse to provide reproductive health-care services, even at the
expense of patient safety.”
Conscience clauses are known in the
pro-abortion world as “refusal clauses” that get in the way of a woman’s right
to choose. “While we firmly believe that all people have a right to their own
opinions and moral beliefs, it is unethical for health-care providers to stand
in the way of a woman’s access to safe, legal and professional health care,” a
Planned Parenthood website read.
On Jan. 15, the ACLU filed a lawsuit
in federal court to overturn the HHS regulations. The Connecticut attorney
general’s office and Planned Parenthood Federation of America with Planned
Parenthood of Connecticut have also filed separate legal challenges to the HHS
rules.
In February, Obama announced his
plan to rescind the HHS rules outright. On March 10, HHS issued a proposal to
follow through on Obama’s plan. A 30-day public comment period followed, ending
April 9. During the comment period, the HHS received more than 340,000
comments, the overwhelming majority of which favored the rules.
In recent weeks, the only official
word on the subject from the Obama administration was the president’s May 17
Notre Dame speech.
As this article went to press,
repeated e-mails and phone calls to Secretary Sebelius’ office went unreturned,
leaving major questions unanswered.
Stevens suggested the silence
surrounding this issue may be strategic.
“Increasingly, we’ve seen that the
other side doesn’t want to even come to debate on this topic in media
interviews because they want to keep a very low profile on this,” Stevens says.
“At least at Notre Dame, President Obama acknowledged that there’s an issue.
But I don’t think his remarks decreased people’s concern. Among those who are
knowledgeable about the problem, he probably increased concern.”
Sue
Ellin Browder writes
from Willits, California.
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