USCCB's efforts to keep conscience regulations for health care workers

[rpp]

Please see this important link.

usccb.org/conscienceprotection/

This is the USCCB’s efforts to retain the conscience regulations of rhealth care workers that Obama seeks to rescind.

Here is a related article:

Cardinal George warns US heading toward despotism, urges Catholics to lobby for conscience protection

Warning that the Obama administration’s proposed removal of conscience-protection regulations for health care workers “would be the first step in moving our country from democracy to despotism,” Cardinal Francis George, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, urged Catholics to contact the Department of Health and Human Services before the administration makes its final decision. “We therefore need legal protection for freedom of conscience and of religion-- including freedom for religious health care institutions to be true to themselves,” Cardinal George said. He added:
Conscientious objection against many actions is a part of our life. We have a conscientious objection against war for those who cannot fight, even though it’s good to defend your country. We have a conscientious objection for doctors against being involved in administering the death penalty. Why shouldn’t our government and our legal system permit conscientious objection to a morally bad action, the killing of babies in their mother’s womb? People understand what really happens in an abortion and in related procedures—a living member of the human family is killed—that’s what it’s all about—and no one should be forced by the government to act as though he or she were blind to this reality. I ask you please to let the government know that you want conscience protections to remain strongly in place. In particular, let the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington know that you stand for the protection of conscience, especially now for those who provide the health care services so necessary for a good society.

Full story here.

 

[rpp]

Here is what I wrote in my email.

Today we are confronted by many challenges to our health care system. Among other serious difficulties is the widespread shortage of qualifies physicians who can meet the needs of women. There is such a shortage of OB/GYN in this country that in some places, it is very difficult for women to get proper prenatal and obstetrics care, no matter how well insured or how much money they have. This is due to a number of reasons, including malpractice insurance rates.

The last thing we should do is to enact policies that will discourage people from entering or remaining in the health care industry. More specifically, repealing the conscience regulation for health care workers will send a chilling message, especially to those in the fields of women’s health. It will inevitably cause many to either change their specialties or choose another where they will not be forced to perform a medical procedure they find morally repugnant. The effect on women’s health can only be described as disastrous.

Their fixed text

Please retain the conscience regulation, and enforce current laws protecting the right of health care providers to serve patients without violating their moral and religious convictions. The right of conscience protected by existing federal laws is inviolable. Weakening protection for this right will harm the ethical integrity of our healing professions, drive caring people out of these professions, and reduce patients’ access to much-needed basic health care.

And my conclusion

Thank you for considering the needs of the varied and diverse people, both in and out of health care, patients and clinicians alike.

 

[Teelynn]

Did send an email to HHS, have also written President Obama. Don’t know what else to do but pray now.

 

[DrPiano]

My opening:

I’m a medical student and a Catholic. Both the desire to be a doctor and the need to follow my conscience are unchangeable parts of who I am. I am also a woman. I know the difficulty that already exists in finding an OB/GYN who won’t push me to take birth control, who understands Natural Family Planning, and particularly who won’t encourage me to have an abortion.

Revoking the conscience regulation will have a huge number of negative impacts on my life. It would remove that which protects me from being forced to do that which I deeply believe to be murder. It would remove My right to do (or not do) what I choose with my own body, in my choice to not participate in abortions. If my school, a staunchly pro-abortion school, decides to include abortions as a required part of the curriculum, what will stop them? Who would enforce the laws you claim are already on the books? And how would that enforcement be done?

Removing the conscience protection regulation would also make my search for an understanding OB/GYN that much more difficult as it would at best discourage like-minded people from entering that field and at worst, drive those who are already there out. With the shortage of OB/GYNs in this country that already exists, I do not believe that we can afford to discourage new doctors from specializing in this important field. These doctors are essential to women’s health, and having a doctor who understands your beliefs, rather than laughing at them or scorning them, is essential.

My Closing:

I know you say that you believe that removing this wouldn’t change anything, but if that were really true, why would you be seeking to remove them? Why not just leave it as is? And why would pro-abortion groups be clamoring so hard to get them removed?

Changing these regulations WILL have a negative impact on my life. They will negatively impact women’s health in this country. Please leave them in place.

Thank you for reading this and for considering my viewpoint.