Patient Rights Or Religious Beliefs?
2 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // July 31st, 2008 // 9:45 am
A Bush administration proposal aimed at protecting health-care workers who object to abortion, and to birth-control methods they consider tantamount to abortion, has escalated a bitter debate over the balance between religious freedom and patients’ rights, The Washington Post reports.
The Department of Health and Human Services is reviewing a draft regulation that would deny federal funding to any hospital, clinic, health plan or other entity that does not accommodate employees who want to opt out of participating in care that runs counter to their personal convictions, including providing birth-control pills, IUDs and the Plan B emergency contraceptive, the paper writes.
Conservative groups, abortion opponents and some members of Congress welcome the initiative as necessary to safeguard doctors, nurses and other health workers who, they say, are increasingly facing discrimination because of their beliefs or are being coerced into delivering services they find repugnant, according to the Post.
But the 39-page draft proposal has sparked intense criticism by family planning advocates, women’s health activists, and members of Congress who say the regulation would create overwhelming obstacles for women seeking abortions and birth control, the Post continues.
…The draft states that numerous cases have been reported of health-care workers being “required to violate their consciences by providing or assisting in the provision of controversial medicine or procedures.” It adds many states recently passed laws requiring health plans to pay for contraception, pharmacists to fill prescriptions for birth control, and hospitals to offer Plan B to women who have been raped (background on one state).
Here’s the rest of the story…
Bruce Grant
When I first began working in medicine, over 40 years ago, medical students and residents were told in no uncertain terms, “When you are treating patients, leave your moral judgments outside the door. Your job is to serve the patients.” The physicians I first worked with treated patients in an STD (then called “venereal disease”) clinic, and I am sure had many thoughts which they kept to themselves about their patients and their lifestyles, but they prided themselves on treating every patient with professionalism and dignity. How far we’ve sunk.
pharma PR hack
It is extremely unnerving and defies logic that someone’s healthcare can be compromised just for the sake of another’s ideals which define a certain service as repugnant. When did the patient become the odd person out in their own body?
And more importantly where is it going to end.