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Reproductive health and enviro activists are fuming over two more last-minute rule changes by the outgoing Bush administration: a new reg that allows heathcare workers to nix treatments to which they have moral objections, and another one that bars regulators from taking into consideration a power company's climate change–causing greenhouse gas emissions when applying for a license to build new coal-fired plants.

Both rules are set take effect a month from now—just hours before Pres. Bush vacates the White House and President-elect Barack Obama is sworn in to office on Jan. 20.

The so-called “right of conscience” rule allows workers at more than 584,000 U.S. medical facilities that receive federal funding to refuse to provide patient care that involves procedures with which they disagree. Critics say the decision will mostly affect the provision of reproductive-health services to women, including abortion, birth control and emergency contraception. They also say it could complicate states’ ability to enforce laws requiring hospitals to offer those treatments, especially the morning-after pill for rape victims.
 
"In just a matter of months, the Bush administration has undone three decades of federal protections for both medical professionals and their patients," Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement. "It replaced them with a policy that seriously risks the health of millions of women, then tried to pass it off as benevolent."

Obama could ask the Department of Health and Human Services to review and possibly reverse the controversial new reg. In addition, Congress could overturn it: Sens. Patty Murray (D–Wash.) and Hillary Clinton (D–N.Y.) have introduced a bill calling for it to be scuttled on grounds that it jeopardizes women's health.

Obama "will review all eleventh-hour regulations and will address them once he is president," spokesperson Nick Shapiro told the Washington Post.

The other ruling, issued late yesterday by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief Stephen Johnson, says that federal regulators do not have to consider the potential carbon dioxide output of new plants when deciding whether they can be built.

“The current concerns over global climate change should not drive EPA into adopting an unworkable policy of requiring emission controls,” Johnson wrote in the memo to regional EPA administrators.

As a result, new coal plants that pump out an estimated 8,000 megawatts of power could be approved as a result, Vickie Patton, the Environmental Defense Fund's general counsel, told The New York Times.

“It’s a marvel to behold an EPA action that so utterly disdains global warming responsibility and disdains the law at the same time,” John Walke, a lawyer at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement. 

Image of President Bush/White House, Chris Greenberg

11 Comments

1. 1. oneStarman 12:31 PM 12/20/08

   ETHICAL CHOICE - I don't think anyone should do something to which they are morally opposed. Medical professionals should not perform abortions or give transfusions or cut into flesh if their religious or moral beliefs forbid such actions. Just as if one is morally opposed to handguns; which are only used for murdering other people; and one is a Fireman - perhaps one would not want to put out the fire at the house of a gun owner. If that is ones choice that is fine. The way one exercises that choice is by finding another profession.

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2. 2. milan 09:14 AM 12/21/08

   Very well stated. Thank You.

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3. 3. Shoshin 10:38 AM 12/21/08

   I think the whole AGW issue needs to be challenged under the Constitution. The question would be: : "Does the establishment of an AGW Secretary violate the separation of church and state?". It seems to me that Obama's Department of AGW is not really different than having a Department of Roman Catholicism, or the Department of Scientology.

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4. 4. polosail 02:32 PM 12/22/08

   Those electing or reserving the right to invoke the "conscience clause" should be required to register publicly, as in the case of sex offenders, detailing the procedures or interventions they will decline to put into effect. Such will at least allow patients to make wise choices in care provider.

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5. 5. polosail 02:34 PM 12/22/08

   Starman should agree: register the refusniks in a publicly available site.

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6. 6. polosail in reply to oneStarman 02:36 PM 12/22/08

   There should be a central register of refusers with what they refuse -- as in the case of sex offenders. Avoidance is important, before a complication ensues.

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7. 7. law_student 06:59 PM 12/23/08

   Mr. Lite,
   
   This article mischaracterizes the conscience clause rule about which it reports. Your article claims that the regulation "allows heathcare workers to nix treatments to which they have moral objections." This is not true. The regulation simply clarifies existing conscience clause laws which have already been enacted by Congress over the past 35 years and requires employers to certify that they are actually complying with these existing laws. The regulation puts no new strictures on the provision of abortion or any other medical procedure.
   
   The HHS press release linked to your article describes that one of the justifications for this rule as being the widespread misinformation about existing conscience clause law. Your own article seems to prove that very point. It is difficult to see how a person who read the regulation itself could in good faith describe it as you have.

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8. 8. SuzyScience 01:34 PM 1/22/09

   why have you invented a new word? "regs"

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9. 9. dano853 in reply to oneStarman 12:43 PM 3/30/09

   That is a very dishonest and deceptive comparison, and is only "very well said" if you want to trick people into accepting a lie as truth. Your comparison would only be equal to a doctor refusing to save the life of the "gun owner". But granted, if America, or any other "civilized" contry will require that ALL its health care providers provide any medical proceedure, regardless of conscience or religeous conviction, we will find our hospitals and clinics void of people who love God, and love his most beloved creation: man.

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10. 10. dano853 in reply to polosail 12:53 PM 3/30/09

    As a health care provider I would gladly register. I think you will find EVERY provider with religeous or moral reservation about such proceedures more than willing to be stigmatized by those of you who would have the gall to compare them to "sex offenders". I think the registry is a wonderful idea. It will allow me to chose a health care provider who has a true respect for life.

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11. 11. inhisservice 02:33 PM 4/8/09

    You have got to be kidding me...... why should a dr. or nurse be forced to comply with giving an abortion to someone when they believe that it is murder.
    
    The sign of life is a beating heart, the baby has a beating heart, is thriving and living and growing... if they do not want to kill this baby, they should not have to.
    
    This is probably one of the worst things our new President is involved. He says his "Lord and Savior is Jesus Christ" well if this was or were true, then he could not do this.
    
    I am very disappointed in this decision.

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