New Bush Rule: Doctors Can Refuse To Give Women Abortions

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration on Thursday proposed stronger job protections for doctors and other health care workers who refuse to participate in abortions because of religious or moral objections.

Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said that health care professionals should not face retaliation from employers or from medical societies because they object to abortion.

"Freedom of conscience is not to be surrendered upon issuance of a medical degree," said Leavitt. "This nation was built on a foundation of free speech. The first principle of free speech is protected conscience."

The proposed rule, which applies to institutions receiving government money, would require as many as 584,000 employers ranging from major hospitals to doctors' offices and nursing homes to certify in writing that they are complying with several federal laws that protect the conscience rights of health care workers. Violations could lead to a loss of government funding and legal action to recoup federal money already paid.

Abortion foes called it a victory for the First Amendment, but abortion rights supporters said they feared the rule could stretch the definition of abortion to include birth control, and served notice that they intend to challenge the administration.

"Women's ability to manage their own health care is at risk of being compromised by politics and ideology," Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement.

Abortion rights groups had complained that earlier drafts contained vague language that might block access to birth control, and they said the latest version has not addressed all of their concerns.

The rule "fails to give assurances that current laws about abortion will not be stretched to cover birth control," said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America.

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But Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, said it upholds basic constitutional freedoms.

"This proposal ensures that doctors and other medical personnel will retain the constitutional right to listen to their own conscience when it comes to performing or participating in an abortion," Perkins said. "These regulations will ensure that pro-life medical personnel will not be forced to engage in the unconscionable killing of innocent human life."

Leavitt said the regulation was intended to protect practitioners who have moral objections to abortion and sterilization, and would not interfere with patients' ability to get birth control or any legal medical procedure.

"Nothing in the new regulation in any way changes a patient's right to any legal procedure," he said, noting that a patient could go to another provider.

"This regulation is not about contraception," Leavitt added. "It's about abortion and conscience. It is very closely focused on abortion and physician's conscience."

The 42-page rule seeks to set up a system for enforcing conscience protections in three separate federal laws, the earliest of which dates to the 1970s. In some cases, the laws aim to protect both providers who refuse to take part in abortions and those who do.

The regulation is written to apply to a broad swath of the health care work force, not doctors alone. Accordingly, an employee whose task it is to clean the instruments used in a particular procedure would be covered. Also covered would be volunteers and trainees.

The underlying laws deal mainly with abortion and sterilization, but both the laws and the language of the rule seem to recognize that objections on conscience grounds could involve other types of services.

"This regulation does not limit patient access to health care, but rather protects any individual health care provider or institution from being compelled to participate in, or from being punished for refusal to participate in, a service that, for example, violates their conscience," the rule said.

Planned Parenthood attorney Roger Evans said that a key legal problem with the rule is that it fails to define what constitutes an abortion, and thereby could be stretched to cover other types of services. But Leavitt said existing laws adequately define abortion.

The regulation now faces a 30-day public comment period.

Comments

[oneCTvoter]

"The regulation now faces a 30-day public comment period" - do you think any comments are going to change their minds. Well I am going to try any way. It isn't that I support abortions, but I don't have the right to impose my beliefs on other people.

[chinationreport]

http://www.chinationreport.com/BushRiceWhoIsHu.html
Have a good laugh about 'Who is Hu?' between Rice and Bush.

[ebbtide]

This is not new. Fifty years ago, a nurse working in the OR, had the choice to participate or not. Indeed, a written release for those who chose not to, was given. The majority of those D&C patients, or clients as they are called nowadays, were rich young women who had abortions legally, under the guise of a uteran affliction or disease. The rest went to back alley medical student's kitchen tables.


Pick your doctor accordingly.

[rshrink]

Just learned that in the 23 most industrialized countries, the U S has the highest infant mortality rate. In Memphis alone, a baby dies every 43 minutes. Where are the protesters to point out this unthinkable loss of life? Many of these babies die as a result of young mothers who do not receive adequate medical care. The cost of prenatal care is a tiny fraction of what it costs to try to save the lives of premature babies. The WIC program was designed to pay for mothers healthcare during pregnancy. It saved an enormous amount of money. Reagan cut their budget and Republicans have generally opposed the program. That is an example of what happens when ignorant, so called moralistic types decide polices based on their beliefs rather than facts.

[silvercreeklady]

If the woman has the right to choose than a doctor should have the same right without penalties.

IF the woman wants an abortion the yellow pages are full of clinics that will provide it!

It is the doctors RIGHT to not perform a proceedure and he should also not be required to provide help in the patient finding someone who will.

[wolfgangmo]

You madam, are an idiot. Doctors in my clinic are licensed. In the one you go to, they probably only have to pray and send in $19.99 to a website to get credentialed. However in the real world they ARE responsible to do what they are hired to do and they ARE required to provide an appropriate referral. For those of us who live in the real world, rather that "should be like I want it to be" land, it is called due diligence.

[ebbtide]

"he"? Says it all right there. I bet the numbers of female doctors and male doctors are about near equal at this point. This is not religion, or if it is, it is a religion that is dominated by men, telling women what to do with their own families and their own body. What it boils down to is the male impulse to scatter his seed and produce many little ones with his genes--and no other man's genes. He knows the child is is, therefore the sin of adultry holds such dire consequences for many women all over the world---stoning for example.

[dzho]

As a recent graduate of medical school I am seeking employment. I have applied to the only clinic in my state that provides abortions, but they unfairly refuse to offer me a huge salary even though I have made it quite clear that my conscience prevents me from participating in any actual medical procedure. What could be the problem?

[ramonsan]

I don't understand how anytime the topic of abortion comes up lately in this context peopel seem to drag birth-control into the same wagon as abortion. The last time I checked birth control was not terminating anything, but rather PREVENTING conception from ever occurring. Oral birth control does not send int little soldiers to kill a fetus once it is conceived, it essentially "tricks" the body into thinking it's already pregnant.

Am I missing something? How can birth control be discussed even in the same topic as abortion in this case? Any while I'm on the topic here's another issue I have with this: If either my wife or I can go and get a "Plan B" from the pharmacy without a prescription, why does a full birth control pack require a doctors prescription? Again, "Plan B" is not terminating a pregnancy. It is just a heavy dosage of birth control. If conception has already occurred, it does absolutely nothing!

I can;t help but believe that if and when there is ever a male oral-contraceptive that it will not require any prescription. I'm a man and it upsets me that we have such double standards. If I were a woman I think I would be even more upset about these issues.

[btal]

The problem is that some forms of birth control (including the pill) *can* technically terminate a "life" if you think that life begins at conception. They can prevent the cell from implanting in the womb, so the woman basically miscarries (but she would never know). I personally think this takes the pro-life movement to a ridiculous level, but there you have it.

[ebbtide]

Perhaps you have not been around as long as I. I remember huge protests by religions, ie the Catholic religion for one, marching around and around, over and over, to protest the production of the "pill" and to prescribe it to women. Indeed, it was prohibited under the pain of sin, for any Catholic woman to use birth control pills. Over and over, the men, yes it was they who slapped the proclamation on women, they were told they were sinning gravely if they used the pill. I am sure it also went to the same logic---doctors who prescribed the pill to women had the right "not to"

We know the outcome of that stupidity on the part of the almighty men and the co-dependant women who were carrying the signs in these tprotests

NO ONE paid attention. Women went and got the pill, and these days, those physicians who were against it, probably prescibe it just as much as anyone. In some places, the morning after pill may be over the counter

[isis]

I would not want a procedure that the doctor did not want to give me. This law appears to be grandstanding.

[ms.understood]

This is an outrage. If abortion is still legal, and last I checked it was, then why should we allow renegade doctors to decide what procedures they will perform and what they won't based on their personal feelings? I don't want my doctor telling me what the best treatment should be if he or she is basing their decisions on personal feelings and politics and not scientific fact. If this nation isn't becoming more and more like a fascist country, then I don't know what is.

[danoj]

Abortion is an elective procedure not a medical neccesity. As such a doctor can choose not to perform said procedure. He still has to see the person and evaluate them, but can choose not to perform the procedure. Furthermore, if someone trains for 10+ years to be a doc and believes a fetus is a living human being who are any of you to say he is incorrect. To many people believe the law says a woman has the right to choose. No law in the land recognises a womans right to choose. Roe was based on the inability to tax a fetus and a man or womans right to privacy, and that's it.

[DelvinMcGee]

every doctor believes a fetus is a living human being. If not human, to which species does a human fetus belong? If not killed, what other animal would a human fetus grow into?

The point is that some doctors believe they can kill the fetus because the mother wants them to.

[stateretiree]

Aren't most abortions performed in Abortion Clinics, by Doctors who choose to work there. If this is so then the new Bush Doctrine is just a little carrot stick thrown out to all those pro-lifers!

[rshrink]

This is a useless law. Of course a doctor can refuse to do a procedure. Not all doctors are ob/gyn's to start, so that eliminates them. Not all ob/gyn's are going to provide abortions. And yes, most mothers cannot afford to pay a doctor, so they go to clinics, particularly young mothers. I would assert that most doctors are intelligent enough and competent enough to decide when an abortion needs to be done. They don't need Bush's help. I would say that Bush is the last person who should have anything to say about medical policies of any kind.

[ADVOCATE4ZPG]

In case McCain wins AND is able to pack the Supreme Court with Roe vs. Wade REVERSERS, "pro-abortion" sympathizers should prepare to wage a guerilla war to vouchsafe access, including a network of vetted providers, sources of RU-486 and "Plan B," and even travel means to Canada, the Caribbean, Mexico(?), et al. Faced with a MASSIVE flouting of probably a farrago of state laws, abortion foes MAY think twice.....!

In short the unenforceability of a "Roe reversal" must be widely recongnized even if its means must remain UNKNOWN!

[Ish11]

What is the different between this and Sharia law? I have two daughters and I feel so bad that someone else has to make choices for them.

[wolfgangmo]

Speaking as someone who has many colleagues in Canada, I would say go ahead and make abortion illegal. It will just make many of my colleagues rich.

[RRK70]

American Taliban. This administration is only concerned with "Free Speech" and "conscience" when it involves the right of a particular religious view to exercise control over other people's rights.

[Blivet]

In the 1930’s when I was a kid, there were two buildings in town, one a “Lying In” hospital where most of the kids in town were born often delivered by midwives sometimes by doctors. But it probably had more patients each week who went there for D&C procedures, always provided by doctors. Fatalities were rare.
In yet another building in town, there was relentless traffic, mostly young women who often arrived alone and departed by taxi the same or the next day. Many from this group often died of “Massive hemorrhage”
the local newspaper terminology for abortion complications. Despite the fact that everyone in town knew what was going on, and that it was illegal, convictions of abortionists were rare and the abortion palace continued to operate well into the 1970’s when Row V Wade changed the abortion picture.
There is no question of the intent of the Bush administration. But don't be surprised when there is a return to the abortion palaces of the 1930’s as a result.

[DelvinMcGee]

this post is a total croc.

[Blivet]

You're comment is irrelevant.
I doubt if you were alive in the 1930's.

[jfor]

So when these pro choice doctors graduate and go into private practice make it mandatory that they post what they believe and what they will or will not do to save their patients life. I will take the doctor that will do anything and everything to save my or my loved ones lifes and you can choose the doctor that wont. Let the market dictate which doctors will succeed and pay off thier loans and which ones will fail and beg the government for bail outs.

I do not need some quack's faith in god get in the way of my reality.

[zoomzoomgal]

Do you think any doctor who has faith is a quack? Wow. That's harsh.

[isis]

I think that if your life was on the line and a doctor pulled something crazy then you could sue for malpractice.

[liberal]

My mother who recently passed away at 94 would tell me stories about the women she knew when she was younger. How out of desperation they would try and perform an abortion on themselves. And how so many of them bled to death. Why should a decision like that not be left to anyone but the woman herself. I Think it is sanctimonious for any one to make a judgment for another person.The religious right fails to comprehend that there are religions and beliefs other then theirs and they have no right to force people to follow beliefs.

[zoomzoomgal]

"I Think it is sanctimonious for any one to make a judgment for another person."

This is precisely what everyone is doing in regard to the MD's who don't want to perform abortions. You, and anyone else holding that position, are judging these doctors, some calling them horrible names and accusing them of not caring about their patients.
People, get this: the world is not made up only of women seeking abortions, and the only worthy doctors are not those who perform abortions.
How can you hold such a narrow view and call yourself progressive?

[wolfgangmo]

Zoom,

If we call ourselves progessive, then what do you call yourself?

[Honza]

Wow the Georgie Bush is sure out doing himself with the lives of our American citizens, since I'm an old senior in need of emergency care on occasion, the first thing I'm going to ask the Doctor who is on call, "do you have a problem with preforming abortions?" and if his answer is yes, I'll say get lost sir, get me somebody that took the oath to save lives.

[samandally]

Let me get this right, you don't want a doctor that woudn't kill a fetus but yet you want one that will save lives? Only a pius liberal could justify that one!

[wolfgangmo]

Honza,

If it is an emergency don't even ask the question ... until later. They you can fire him/her.

Sam,

No, a thinking person could also make that choice. It is called a moral stance. You should be familiar with that, it is what some abortion opponents pretend to do often.

[filmcan]

First of all, the nation was not founded on free speech. It was founded on the backs of fur traders, tobacco farmers, and slaves. Free speech was a right for which many Americans fought and died to attain for their country. They fought and died for many freedoms, wresting them away from a British Crown that was loath to provide them. Free speech resulted in Roe vs. Wade. The Supreme Court means that the argument is over. The only creed that a doctor must follow is "First, do no harm." That's it. There is no other moral question to be raised when considering dispensing medical care. If you are an obstetrician who has a problem performing abortions, then let me suggest that obstetrics is not for you. You help your patients in the manner that they expect, period! This proposal is like saying to cops, you only have to arrest suspects against whom you have no moral objection. If a doctor can say, I refuse to perform that procedure, and there is no way to compel them to do so, then what is the point of the Supreme Court, even the structure of laws themselves?

[DelvinMcGee]

wow, don't you think "do no harm" might apply to the living human fetus you are killing?

[recless]

Tell that to God the next time he allows a miscarriage (that is all an abortion is... an intentional miscarriage).

[ebbtide]

Dear Delvin

A fetus is not a living, fully developed little cuddly baby that can even; coo and talk in some ridiculous narratives and falsities of pro life religious fanatics. Please take advantage of your Google, or any other search instrument and please educate yourself as to the stages of human development. Read not just one source and if that is too much, then stick to your religion and the bible, which mentions it not at all except in the concept of one man punching a woman in the stomach to destroy a pregnancy, and being fined for doing so., But do not be so presumptive to think you can force your beliefs on others, who are acting fully within the law, and to think you and your presumptive religion can punish women in some way, that could turn out to be a horror.

[filmcan]

Delvin, that is an interesting point. Leaving aside the somewhat simple way in which you associate "killing a living human fetus" with a human being exercising her constitutional right to privacy, I'd like to point out that the 14th Amendment was the underlying constitutional basis that secured abortion rights for women, nationally, in the US. Detailed medical research on human development combined with landmark Supreme and lower court decisions that have defined and are continuing to define US abortion law, informs women and men as to the differences between zygote or fetus, viability or not, and appropriate standards of health. Do you truly believe, leaving aside any particular personal ideology or morality, that women considering ending a pregnancy are cavalier in their intent, callously sailing into their doctor's offices with nary a care in the world? I know there is an irrational angst about the threat to the fabric of society of the "serial abortionist" but I think that sort of fear mongering amounts to nothing more than "Fear of a Black Hat." I believe these women are consumed by the process of their decision, thinking about it rationally all day, and praying about it all night. I believe they contemplate every possible outcome, in an exhaustive, emotional, meditative, passionate, and substantive manner. I believe that to accuse them of "killing a living human fetus" is a gross oversimplification of the entirety of the process.

[filmcan]

Continued...

Again, if an ob/gyn is morally opposed to performing a legal request for an abortion, believing that the process uniformly is murder, then they are going against established medical theory and case law. I'm assuming by your comment that you may be a person who holds this to be true, that what the doctor is doing is killing. This seems to presume that a person who is not born has the same rights as a person who is born. In fact the 14th amendment specifically defines citizens of the United States, as "persons born, or naturalized." Now, of course, there is always subjective interpretation. However, where does it stop? As soon as you venture into the dimly lit world of "the unborn," you're on thin ice. Men carry billions of sperm cells. Are they all persons, or some Orwellian type of "semi-persons," guaranteed rights under the constitution? I don't mean to be flip, but either this is a nation of laws or it is not. Laws proscribe limits on systems of thought as well as materialism.

[filmcan]

And, continued...

One other thing... I continue to fail to see how freedom of speech can be seen to justify an attack on fundamental rights. Congress is prohibited from "abridging the freedom of speech," a prohibition that can only serve to strengthen fundamental rights. If the government can say that that portion of the amendment can recuse a doctor from performing his bound duty to a LIVING, FULLY BORN citizen, doesn't that leave government open to some very large legal challenges of its own? Can soldiers refuse to kill the enemy, endeavoring only to capture or otherwise debilitate them? Does a judge or a juror have the right to make a decision based solely on their conscience, guaranteed by a right to speak freely? Would a poor tortured soul, who after failing at suicide, and enduring a lengthy recovery, be charged with multiple counts of attempted murder, one for each endangered reproductive cell that they carry in their body? These things don't happen regularly, and were they to occur, future case law no doubt would be defined by them. Doctors, along with all other Americans, live in a limited Republic. That res publica has already spoken, and Bush's rule, and support of it, is legally unsound. Your conscience is your own right up until you raise your hand and swear an oath...