Today marks the end of the 30-day comment period on President Obama's proposal to rescind the "conscience clause" implemented in the final days of the Bush presidency. There's been a lot of misinformation about what Obama's proposal means, particularly when it comes to conscience protections for abortion. Some groups have falsely alleged that rescinding the "conscience clause" will force doctors to perform abortions against their will. In fact, current underlying laws protect such providers and these conscience protections will remain in place. Rescinding the "conscience clause," which was implemented by the outgoing Bush administration on January 20, 2009, simply returns conscience protections to the way they were less than three months ago -- the same way they were under President Bush for eight years and prior.
While some religious groups do oppose the rescission, many support it because of their concern that it is overly broad and vague and could be harmful to health care and counter-productive to efforts to reduce unintended pregnancies and, in turn, the number of abortions:
The Provider Refusal Law already ensures that health-care providers do not have to provide abortion and sterilization services if doing so contradicts their religious or moral beliefs....[President Bush] extended it beyond abortion and sterilization to contraception, fertility treatments, end-of-life care, and many other health-care services. By limiting access to birth control, the expansion of the conscience clause actually hurts efforts to prevent unintended pregnancies and reduce the need for abortion.
...The federal statues already in effect were clear and have proved themselves useful over nearly three decades. A change was not needed to ensure greater awareness and enforcement. Instead, the last-minute expansion brought confusion rather than clarity, imposed unnecessary certification restrictions on economically strapped health-care institutions, and left millions of low-income patients vulnerable to being denied essential health-care services.
Broadening of "The Provider Refusal Rule" undermined the ability of organizations to guarantee that they will provide comprehensive health services. Disruption of that guarantee puts patients' health at risk. The United Methodist Church cannot support denial of what it considers a basic human right, nor can it endorse any government action that puts the most vulnerable in our society more at risk.
Care provider exemption provisions already exist in HHS regulations...The Bush "conscience clause" obscures this obligation, raising questions about whether it could limit everything from HIV tests to blood transfusions to emergency contraception for rape victims.
...Critics charge that the Bush regulations could increase unplanned pregnancies, for instance, if a provider is morally opposed to contraception and does not refer the patient.
...The Rev. Loey M. Powell, co-team leader of the Cleveland Based Program Team in Justice and Witness Ministries, noted that the UCC supports the rescinding of the conscience clause as an extension of health care rights.
Virtually all American women--98 percent--use a contraceptive at some point in their lives. And the vast majority of Americans--including people of faith--support universal access to birth control and accurate contraceptive information. The refusal regulation imposes dangerous obstacles to women's access to reproductive health care and inaccurately does so in the name of religious liberty. We strongly support the accommodation of employees' religious beliefs in the workplace, but a woman, regardless of her income, age, religion, race, or geographic location must have access to the health care services she needs, including the full range of contraceptive options and information.Our faiths motivate us to speak out for comprehensive health care, including reproductive health care, for women, children, and families around our country - many of whom are part of our faith communities.
--American Jewish Committee; Anti-Defamation League; Catholics for Choice; Disciples for Choice; Disciples Justice Action Network; Equal Partners in Faith; Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America; The Jewish Council for Public Affairs; Jewish Reconstructionist Federation; National Council of Jewish Women; Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice; Union for Reform Judaism; Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations; United Church of Christ; United Methodist Church, General Board of Church & Society; Women of Reform Judaism
It's also worth noting that religious leaders from across the ideological spectrum who disagree on rescinding the rule -- from Richard Land to David Saperstein -- have found some common ground:
While some of us would urge the Department of Health and Human Services...to retain the "Regulation" promulgated at the end of last year...and others of us would urge the Department to rescind it, in whole or in part, we agree that the conscience protections for healthcare providers contained in Federal statutory law since 1973 provide appropriate and much-needed protection for institutional and individual healthcare providers who object to performing certain procedures, such as abortion or sterilization.
The group is calling for the Obama administration to "be much more specific about what kind of exemptions religious health care workers should be entitled to when it comes to tasks they morally oppose."